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Science question

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 10:24 am
by britincali
Heres a fun one I saw on another board...



Bob is driving his awsomely fast duramax at the speed of light, he turns on his headlights, what happens?

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 10:30 am
by Nodge
Um......nothing? :o

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 10:36 am
by AlisoBob
If I'm driving at the speed of light, I am light.

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 11:08 am
by britincali
IMO if you could yurn them on the filaments would glow but nothing would come out of the bulb.

Thats if you could turn them on, according to Mr Einstein time stops at the speed of light so theres a bit of a conumdrum :lol: :lol:

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 11:13 am
by AlisoBob
Heres another one.....

Chris bolts on his new, ported blower... and scatters his powdered rods all over Barstow. Tox says " I told you so".

Question: How long will it be before Chris gets laid again??

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 2:26 pm
by 90cr500guy
britincali wrote:IMO if you could yurn them on the filaments would glow but nothing would come out of the bulb.

Thats if you could turn them on, according to Mr Einstein time stops at the speed of light so theres a bit of a conumdrum :lol: :lol:
They would light up just fine.
They dont know how fast they are going because they are part of the vehicle moving at speed

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 2:31 pm
by AlisoBob
186,000 miles per second is as a fast as light can go.. no more.

You cant just add on the speed of the moving vehicle.... dosent matter.

It take light 8 minutes to reach the earth from the sun.

The "headlight beams" on a speed of light rocket ship would reach us in 4 minutes by your math.....

....nope.

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 2:37 pm
by 90cr500guy
AlisoBob wrote:186,000 miles per second is as a fast as light can go.. no more.

You cant just add on the speed of the moving vehicle.... dosent matter.

It take light 8 minutes to reach the earth from the sun.

The "headlight beams" on a speed of light rocket ship would reach us in 4 minutes by your math.....

....nope.
No, I didnt say they would produce useable light, I just said the filaments would light up
Didnt you see the mythbusters episode with lauching a soccer ball off the back of a truck moving the same speed as the ball?

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 2:39 pm
by AlisoBob
90cr500guy wrote:Didnt you see the mythbusters episode with lauching a soccer ball off the back of a truck moving the same speed as the ball?
No, I was getting laid at the time.

Besides, Were talking Quantum Physics here, not bouncing balls.

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 5:33 pm
by MojoScojo
Light speed...
...How fast do electrons travel?
Could you even turn them on?

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 5:39 pm
by AlisoBob
Mojo is the smartest of us all.....

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 7:16 pm
by sabreguy
MojoScojo wrote: ...How fast do electrons travel?
That's easy............. they travel at LUDICROUS SPEED!!!!!!

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 7:36 pm
by MojoScojo
sabreguy wrote:
MojoScojo wrote: ...How fast do electrons travel?
That's easy............. they travel at LUDICROUS SPEED!!!!!!
There's the answer. They shine plaid.

Image

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 7:53 pm
by britincali
MojoScojo wrote:Light speed...
...How fast do electrons travel?
Could you even turn them on?
IMO if you could turn them on the filaments would glow but nothing would come out of the bulb

:wink:

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 7:54 pm
by britincali
Electrons have mass therfore they cannot travel at the speed of light.

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 7:57 pm
by MojoScojo
britincali wrote:Electrons have mass therfore they cannot travel at the speed of light.
Then neither can Bob in his Duramax. Both are pretty massive.

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 8:18 pm
by britincali
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 8:41 pm
by AlisoBob
britincali wrote:Electrons have mass therfore they cannot travel at the speed of light.
Electrons can absolutely travel at the speed of light.

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 8:48 pm
by MojoScojo

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 9:19 pm
by AlisoBob
According to Einstein's theory of special relativity, as an electron's speed approaches the speed of light, from an observer's point of view its relativistic mass increases, thereby making it more and more difficult to accelerate it from within the observer's frame of reference. Your link explains this Mojo.

The speed of an electron can approach, but never reach the speed of light in a vacuum, however, when relativistic electrons—that is, electrons moving at a speed close to the speed of light —are injected into a dielectric medium such as water, where the local speed of light is significantly less , the electrons temporarily travel faster than light in that medium.

That same effect could probably be demostrated in "super-conducting" materials as well.

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 9:29 pm
by MojoScojo
So what is light speed really? The speed of light is dependent upon the medium through which it travels.

Ok, getting pretty deep theorizing about what would really happen if something that couldn't happen did...

Break a fundamental law of physics and you have to rewrite the book.

Too much for my tiny little brain. I just wanna ride.

Posted: April 14th, 2010, 10:12 pm
by britincali
I knew this thread would end up cool :cool: :cool: :lol: :lol: :lol:


Anything with mass can only go 99.999999999999% the speed of light. (currently known)

Posted: April 15th, 2010, 5:35 am
by 90cr500guy
I read this and all I could think about was engine building.
If 200hp gets you down the 1/4 mile in 14 seconds
That does not mean 400hp will get you there in 7 seconds

Posted: April 15th, 2010, 7:25 pm
by Travis
The soccer ball idea is the same as if you were on a plane moving at the speed of a bullet and shot the gun toward the front. Some people think the bullet would fall out of the gun or that nothing would happen. I would not want to be the guy in front of the gun.

However light and its speed is a totally different beast than gun powder and lead.

Posted: April 15th, 2010, 10:59 pm
by britincali
If you fire a bullet in a plane towards the front of a plane traveling at say 1400 mph (rough guess on a bullett???) the bullett would be going 2800 mph.

Now if you fire it towards the rear it may fall out of the barrell.