A car...

If a car is traveling at light speed and turns on its headlights....does anything happen?

Well, let's think about this for a second. I mean really think. a cursory analysis of the problem at hand reveals a startlingly simple, yet profound conclusion wherein the paradox is solved. If a car was to travel at the speed of light it's molecular structure would break down into light itself but if this 'quantum car' were to turn on it's headlights it would induce a state of quantum tunneling in which the gluons and gravitons were forced to tunnel through each other and implode upon themselves causing a massive black hole roughly plancks length across but if the car were to swerve into this black hole it would find itself existent in not three but seven dimensions at which point the hyperspatial entities would try to stop the car before it slammed into schroedingers cat, but of course traveling at the speed of light it could not hit it's brakes in time and it was found that schroedingers cat was indeed completely dead inside the box. But now another paradox has presented itself; is the state of the quantum car within the box a state of it's headlights on or off? Let us examine then in brief the crux of the matter. While in the case of schroedinger's cat the cat itself can be supposed in a state of quantum flux, that is, it's quantum state remaining indeterminate until an observation is made, thus collapsing the multifarious wave function of the atoms and molecules constituent thereof, according to the correspondence principle, breaking it down further we find that, the paradox of shroedinger's cat(at the end of the day when all is said and done you end up with a cat that is both half-dead and-half alive, not a pretty picture right?) is hauntingly familiar to the beer in a box scenario wherein a beer is supposed half-drunk and half-not drunk, thus presenting a bit of a quandary for modern physicist's, yet I have solved the paradox of the quantum cat and I believe by applying the ssame proof to the case of the quantum car, the paradox is resolved thusly. Just as in the case of schroedinger's cat, if we take into account that the cat is itself conscious, and therefore able to observe itself as a metasystem in transition collapsing the wave function upon observation, the cat is either dead or alive, no in between and the paradox is resolved. In the case of Schroedinger's Beer, the beer itself can be supposed in a state of quantum flux, that is, it's quantum state remaining indeterminate until an observation is made, thus collapsing the multifarious wave function of the atoms and molecules constituent thereof, according to the correspondence principle, breaking it down further we find that, the paradox of shroedinger's beer(half-drunk and-half not-drunk) is hauntingly familiar to the famous cat in a box scenario wherein a cat is supposed half-dead and half alive, thus presenting a bit of a quandary for modern physicist's. Now, the quantum beer(or foam), by asserting the ubiquity of consciousness and taking into account the fact that the beer is itself conscious and therefore able to observe itself as a metasystem in transition collapsing the wave function upon observation, the beer is either drunk or not drunk, no in between and thusly the paradox is resolved.

So we went from gluons to beer?

I've had a lot of them tonight, I figure I'd throw it in there somewhere.

Socrates would be proud

Helo said:

If a car is traveling at light speed and turns on its headlights....does anything happen?

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Yes, oddly enough. The person in the car would see the light from the headlights moving away at light speed. Odd huh?

But if your already moving at light speed, the beams would be traveling the same speed as the car

Helo said:

But if your already moving at light speed, the beams would be traveling the same speed as the car

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Yep, and they'll still move away from the driver at the speed of light.

Thats physically impossible.

Helo said:

Thats physically impossible.

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No, that's relativity.

Helo said:

Thats physically impossible.

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Welcome to relativity.

Helo said:

If a car is traveling at light speed

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Then relativity would be wrong, and thus unable to answer the question. To answer it, we'd need an alternative model of physics. Got one?

Let's say it's travelling at c * 0.99

PKJ said:

Let's say it's travelling at c * 0.99

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In that case, relativity answers that the light will still move away at the speed of light.

Even trippier; lets say your car is going c*.99, racing a car going c*.5; now, if your car turned on it's headlights, the light we be going faster than both cars by the speed of light! Isn't relativity fabulous?

"If a car is traveling at the speed of light", then invisible pink unicorns are blue. It's like the proposition, "If an irresistable force meets an immovable object", then (anything you like).
As matter approaches the speed of light (relative to an outside observer), it becomes more wave-like, smearing out like an electron orbiting a nucleus. From the point of view of an observer in the car, it would appear unchanged, and an instrument attached to the headlights to measure the speed of the light they emit would return the value of "c". An instrument at rest relative to the first observer, would also return the value of "c", although the wavelength of the light would be blue-shifted to the first observer.

But there are no preferred reference points. Say there is a space ship that can accelerate to 75% c. The crew is asleep. One person wakes and put out a beacon. He accelerates to 75%c and goes back to sleep. another person wakes, puts out a beacon and accelerates to .75c and puts out another beacon. How fast is the third beacon moving with respect to the first?

billwald said:

Say there is a space ship that can accelerate to 75% c.

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Well, this is a bit meaningless. What's to stop it from going faster? As you say, there's no fixed reference point. Velocity and acceleration are relative. Now, there may be a maximum speed a ship can travel relative to the interstellar medium without having some serious radiation trouble, but that's a practical problem, not a fundamental issue that need be considered in a thought experiment.

One person wakes and put out a beacon. He accelerates to 75%c and goes back to sleep. another person wakes, puts out a beacon and accelerates to .75c and puts out another beacon. How fast is the third beacon moving with respect to the first?

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Velocities don't add simply in SR. The answer you're looking for is .96c

Arrrrg Relativity is retarded!! Frustration! I knew I shouldn't've slept in Physics that week Freshman year!

billwald said:

But there are no preferred reference points.

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Of course not. But from any unaccelerated reference point the speed of light is invariant. At least so says the theory.

Say there is a space ship that can accelerate to 75% c. The crew is asleep. One person wakes and put out a beacon. He accelerates to 75%c and goes back to sleep. another person wakes, puts out a beacon and accelerates to .75c and puts out another beacon. How fast is the third beacon moving with respect to the first?

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The statement of your thought experiment is unclear. You seem to be saying that the crewmen stop the ship, drop the beacon and then accelerate to .75Xc. This would mean that the beacons would all be at rest with respect to each other. If the beacons were all dropped at .75Xc, they would all have the same speed, and (assuming no change of direction between drops) they would be at rest with relative to each other.

Gracchus said:

The statement of your thought experiment is unclear. You seem to be saying that the crewmen stop the ship, drop the beacon and then accelerate to .75Xc. This would mean that the beacons would all be at rest with respect to each other. If the beacons were all dropped at .75Xc, they would all have the same speed, and (assuming no change of direction between drops) they would be at rest with relative to each other.

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He's using three separate reference frames. Start in the ship's initial rest frame, drop a beacon, and accelerate to .75c. Then switch to the current rest frame of the ship, drop another beacon, and accelerate to .75c in that frame. Drop a third beacon; the rest frame of this beacon is the third reference frame.