If traveling at the speed of light, you turn on head lights, how fast do the lights from the head lights go?

light nevers goes faster than the speed of light.....that is why they call it the speed of light. im sorry to tell you this you see. light is not a solid object that moves at a when it wants how it wants. it is constant it travels in wavelengths and if you were traveling greater than the speed of light you would actually passing the light. if you were traveling the speed of llight the light would not be going the speed of light it would just appear to be staying in place.

you see while you can jump off the roof of a car traveling at 5 miles per hour and be going 5 miles per hour plus the speed at which you jump. you cannot force light to go faster, slower. it travels in wavelengths and can only be reflected. you are thinking physically as if you are somehow able to physically force light. solid objects can be forced. when light is reflected by a mirror it bounces off that mirror and travels at the speed of light. it will not go any faster if you are traveling at the speed of light. im not sure really how to explain it. dont think of light being physically forced. it cannot be clutched or held, forced or anything to make it go faster than the speed of light. imagine a ghost man. now this ghost cannot grab onto things and he can go through things and he can run 25 mph in any direction and reflect himself off of things. but this ghost cannot be slowed down by physical force. he can run along with a car traveling at 25 mph but if the car tops that speed he will not be able to force himself off the hood of that car he will just pass through it and keep traveling at 25 mph. he is not a solid object therefore he cannot force himself.

and in way you are incorrect in saying that you can jump off a car traveling 70 and be going that speed plus the speed at which you jumped. you see technically you are traveling at 70 mph but it is not you that is doind the work. if you jumped off the hood how long would you be going faster than 70 mph.......not very long.....if ou are even able to go faster at all. you are a physical solid object that can be forced and moved......light is not. i have a tes for you. get in your car and get going 40 mph. now roll down your window and spit straight foward....actually have one of your friends drive so you can stick your head out the window. so that way you fill the spit hit against.

lets say you could run 20 mph we'll call that the speed of human. and you got in a car and started going 20 mph or the speed of human......currecntly you are doing no work you are just sitting. now you open the door and get out and proceed to run as fast as you can......which is 20 mph if what you say is true you would be running 40 mph 20 mph for the car and 20 mph for the speed of human.....but unfortunately it is not true. if it was you would surpass the car. but in reality you will just run that same speed.....why you ask... because it is the laws of nature it is impossible for a normal human being to run faster than 20 mph unless it is by force now imagine you let go of the car and are no longer being forced and the car speeds up if what you say is true you would continue to run the speed of the car plus you own speed. or imagine you are in a car going 40 mph currecntly you are doing no work you are just sitting. you open the door and proceed to run....if what you say is true you will be going 60 mph.....speed of car plus the speed of human. but once again it is not true. you will most likely trip and fall and roll or you will quickly be going no faster than 20 mph.......why you ask? because you are no longer being forced by the car. you can go no faster than the speed of human by yourself. but you are able to have the car force you to speeds much greater than the speed of human because you are a solid object that is affected by gravity and forces. light is not. it cannot be forced so therefor it will never ever be able to go faster than the speed of light

1) You cannot travel at lightspeed. It is a meaningless question.

Also calling "c" the speed of light can be misleading: "c" should be called "universal speed" or something like that to emphasize the fact that it is THE speed limit of massive objects, it's something related to all of nature and not just to light (or electromagnetic radiation).

2) Let's say you are travelling just under "c" with respect to the ground and shone a light in the direction of your motion, the light waves would be travelling at "c" with respect to you and also at "c" with respect to the ground. That is after 1 second light will have travelled 186,000 miles from you (both if you are travelling on the object which emits the light or if you are on the ground observing the light emitted). This is a consequence of Einstein's second postulate. The important thing is that light will be 186,000 miles from BOTH observers after 1 second! How can that be: this can happen only if BOTH space and time are measured in different ways according to the observers. The 1 second time intervals which each observer measures in his frame are not of equal duration! And the distances measured are not the same!

3) The "normal" Galilean addition of velocities formula w = u + v is not correct and must be substituted by w = (u + v ) / (1 +uv/c^2). Try it out, you'll see that nothing can go faster than "c" and that if one of the "things" travelling is light, both observers will measure it travelling at "c".

Impressive question! This is exactly the thought experiment that Einstein did that lead him to his theory of Relativity: As you get faster and faster, surely the light would have to go faster and faster to escape the headlight?

The answer is the theory of Special Relativity, it changes the 'rules' of speed you mention (which are called Galilean Relativity) when you are dealing with very high speeds.

You asked about travelling at the speed of light, which is impossible (I'll say why in a bit), so let's think about going almost exactly the speed of light, but a tiny fraction slower.

As you near the speed of light, the light appears to go out still at the same speed. No matter how fast you're moving, the speed of light still appears to be the same. But on the other hand, the speed of light is always constant.

So someone looking at you from a distance, however, can't have you going 99% of the speed of light, and the light leaving your lamp at 100% the speed of light (that would make the light seem to be going at 199% of the speed of light).

To them the light leaving your lamp would still be going the speed of light: they'd see you moving much slower than you thought and they'd see you compressed. This is the 'time dilation' and 'length contraction' that were the shocking (but now widely observed) implications of Einstein's theory.

Another implication of relativity is that, try as you might, you could never accelerate to the speed of light: the nearer you get, the more your mass increases and the more force you need to accelerate even a little bit more. To get to the speed of light, you'd need an infinite amount of force.

So to answer your final question, if you were travelling a tiny fraction slower than the speed of light (i.e. as fast as you possibly could), and you shone your light on the object 10" in front of you, it would be illuminated as normal.

Nothing, time stopped. At c time stops. Thus: velocity = distance/time Distance = velocity * time (We know that light has a non-zero velocity = If photons are not moving with respect to the ship (distance = 0) then time must = 0) The photons would be traveling at the same velocity as the ship, so they are motionless with respect to the ship as observed by an outside observer. An observer on the ship sees the photon moving at c but since time has stopped, the above is true. Imagine a "photon clock" The person traveling at c is in a transparent space ship exactly 1 light second long. There is a perfect mirror at each end of the ship with a photon bouncing back and forth between the 2 mirrors. Each time the photon hits a mirror the clock ticks one second. Now take the ship to c. tourture The observer can see the photon just as it bounces off the rear mirror. Since the ship and the photon are traveling at the same speed (c) the photon appears to be motionless with respect to the ship (and going c with respect to the observer’s frame of reference. Think of 2 cars side by side on the highway both going exactly 60 km/hr. Relative to each other they are motionless. Relative to the highway both are going 60 km/hr). In effect, time has stopped; the clock will never tick again. That clock is dead accurate for the frame of reference it is in. Whether or not time is passing depends on the frame of reference. For the Photon on the ship time has stopped and it is not moving with respect to the ship. For the Photon as observed from outside the ship, time is still passing and it is moving in that frame of reference.

Assuming everything in your question is true, here is the answer:

You will be travelling at the speed of light, FACT.

You will observe your headlights illuminating the way in front of you at the speed of light from your frame of reference, FACT

The light from the headlights will be travelling at the speed of light (not twice the speed of light), FACT.

So how is this possible? Well, you must remember that spacetime is not constant, it is dynamic. The speed of light is constant and it defines the dimentions of space and time. For this reason, it is true that the apparant paradox above is perfectly acceptable.

The metric you are used to using assumes that space and time is static and constant and that things move in spacetime. This isn't the case, and a different metric must be used.

If you look up metric on wikipedia you will find out what I mean. It is a bit of a head-trip at first, but you will see things differently after you understand special relativity.

relativity predicts [and numerous experiments have proved] that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant. This constant speed does not in any way depend upon the state of motion of the source of the light waves nor the observer's state of motion. Light speed, represented usually by small "c" in equations, will always be measured at c by any and all observers. Space warps and time dilates, but a quanta of electromagnetic radiation or photon always travels at the same speed in a vacuum.

It takes several pages to explain measuring the speed of a photon RELATIVE [hence the theory being given the name of Relativity] to any observer will yield the same measurement. Why, because different observers in different frames of reference relative to each other do not measure the same amount of time or distance of space. Now, at our normal waaaaay less than light speed of travel, these discrepancies are unnoticeable with human senses. Find a good book on the subject that goes into the math, read up about the relativistic effects experiments carried out with atomic clocks and it should help you on your way to wrapping your mind around a problem not really part of everyday human experiences.

But, for an example of everyday, commonplace relativistic effects, look at the GPS system. If one did not take Einstein's euqations into account for determining the travel times of the pulses of electromagnetic raditation [radio waves are just like what we call visible light waves, as are microwaves, x-rays, etc--they're all part of the elctromagnetic spectrum], the ability for the devices to calibrate your position on the surface of the earth would not happen. Different observers in different frames of reference--i.e. you with the GPS receiver moving around on the surface of the earth closer to its gravity well and the satellites which are moving faster around and above and away from the gravity well--all measure the passage of time differently, but agree on the speed of light. The GPS computers controlling the system rely on Einstein's equations to provide precise coordinates to the user.

It requires mass to accelerate accelaration = Force / mass, but light which is made up of photons have no mass, so all the situations for speed we think for normal objects with mass fail on light.

If you are in such a car which travels with speed of light and you turn the headlights on then nothing will happen.

No light will come out from head light and you won't be able to see it.

If someone is standing still and your car passes by him then he also cant see the headlights as ON from your car. (This can not happen beacuse for you in the car time has stopped so the other person outside the car can not do anything beacuse he is stopped with reference to you)

But if my friend you are travelling faster then the speed of light and turn your headlights ON then you'll be able to see the light beacuse you will start travelling back in time.

Light travels at constant speed “c” relative to an observer. If you are in the car tha light will travel at speed “c” away from you. If you are standing outside the car the light will travel with the same constant speed “c” relative to YOU.

In special relativity the velocities must be combined using the formula w = (u + v)/(1 + uv/c^2)

Try it and have fun

It will go at the speed of light. Michelson and Morley made an experiment that showed that the speed of light was constant no matter how you were moving. This was at first very much a surprise to them who thought their experiment had gone wrong.

from the theory from albert .. is like u holding a mirror infront of u travel on the light speed.. u will see ur image unchange if u fly for 1 year of light speed.. that mean ur head light wont travel at all..

no, the speed of light is a constant, so your headlights would not illuminate anything. your mention of something inside a moving vehicle is the same sort of idea as how two points on a record (or cd) can be moving at the same rpm, but different speeds