My thoughts on Einstein and the speed of light.

My thoughts:
My belief is that if, when traveling at the speed of light, if you hold your arm fully outstretched holding a facial mirror you would not see anything.

Not even a mirror.

Holding a mirror (or holding anything) while traveling at the speed of light would cause the object to be invisible. The light from the mirror would never reach the person's eyes.

My question:
If you are traveling 1 mile per hour less than the speed of light and held up a mirror, how long would it take to see your reflection and why?





I think I know the right answer, but I wanted to get an idea on what other people thought.

 

You're essentially right about seeing nothing if you were traveling at the speed of light, but if you were traveling 1mph slower, you would probably see nothing, as the wavelength of the light would be so far stretched towards the red part of the spectrum that it would be too long for your eyes to detect.

 

Shredder is right. Our eyes can't see or recognize those wavelengths.

 

No, its essentially that the light has not reached you yet. Or your moving away from it too fast.

 

The wavelength wouldn't change unless it travels through a medium (which there is very little of in space). If the angle of reflection has no effect on the light, my presumtion is that it would take two hours for the person to see their reflection.

- 1 hour for the light to travel to the mirror, and another hour for the light to reflect off the mirror in to the person's eyes.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Well, if we want to be technical you would never see anything ever again because:

A. If you were in space you would explode.
B. If you travelled the speed of light you would be ripped apart or some shit, since consider the amount of stress going mock 1 causes...

:/

 

A. You wouldn't explode, you have been watching too many cartoons.
B. He said he was travelling just under the speed of light. And In a vacuum there is nothing to rip you apart. Not like there is air or friction for that matter.

 

The human body could not withstand that speed because the amount of energy required to get to that point would be enough to well over destroy any living thing. unless you were in some sort of capsul. And according to einstein, for any ammount of mass to travel the speed of light it would take an infinite amount of energy.
So in essence, You could get infintesimaly close to the speed of light, but never actualy reach it.

 

I believe if you travel at the speed of light, you would be traveling though time as well.. . .which Im pretty sure is impossible. As Tyranic said, an infinite amount of energy is required, and that may be a bit of a problem.

 

It can. Space is different from Earth. Astronauts are moving at speeds of more than 1000 MPH when they are stationary. They are not weightless, they are just falling.

It wouldn't be difficult getting that fast. The most likely way to do it would be to use other planets. Using their gravity, we can zoom around them gaining speed. As we gain more speed we'd increase the area of our path. This is how NASA launches satellites out our solar system.

 

If that were the case wouldn't your arm have to be extended one mile from your eyes? 1mph is 1mph, it shouldn't matter if it's a car catching up to a car going 1mph slower than it or light catching up to a mirror going 1mph slower than it.

 

So.. we CAN withstand that? (sorry if off topic, but I'm learning) I thought a human body at that speed would be instantly incinerated..

 

It's not about distance; it's about speed and time. I'm not entirely sure I understood what you said either, so I'll leave it at that.

 

the air inside you would rip you apart. when in a vacuum any little bit of air will want to fill the vacuum and with such force it would litteraly tear its way out of your body.

also, to travel the speed of light you would have infinite weight and need infinite energy. the faster an object travels the heavier it gets, and thus the more energy needed to accelerate it.

 

I know that you cant exceed the speed of light, but he said that if he was just under it.

 

lol fact is no1 can travel to the speed of light. so maybe we should just forget about that question hehe. shredders always right -.-

 

lol, ass kisser much?

but anyway. 1 mile per hour slower than the speed of light would take more energy than man has consumed in all its years on earth. And at that speed, molocules would get so exited that the temperature created by this exitement would essentially melt any material we have available.

 

Everyone is forgetting...

There is almost nothing in space.

If you compared the number of atoms in the human body to materials in space, each atom would be miles apart.

There is little resistance in space to limit speed by heat or pressure.

 

Where there is energy, there is heat. To create movement, you need thrust; To create thrust, you need energy.

 

this is to complicated