We know that anything travelling at a high rate of speed produces gravity waves, or G-force. We also know gravity waves can bend light. Now, if we assume that a ship travelling at 186,000 miles per second doesn't get crushed by the gravity wave it produces, (if we could see these waves they should resemble the magnetic waves of Earth with the waves starting at the North pole, or in our ship's case, the nose and flowing backwards along the body of the ship towards our tail), then a headlight turned on at that speed would find the light trapped inside the gravity shield. Because the gravity waves would bend the light BACK along our ship and force the light to flow towards the tail, then in theory, if we looked out a port in direct line with the headlights and the nose of the ship, then the light would be bent back to our eyes and we would see it. The problem with this theory is proving or disproving it. Until such time as we can make a ship that would survive the G-forces created just by a fraction of the speed of light, then this question is open to anyone's opinion. Now if we could create a shield to cancel this gravity wave so that the field wouldn't bend the light backwards towards our eye ... What happens to the light then?

The velocity of stars can be calculated by their red shift. If the spectra (or basically colour) of a given star is known then it may be possible to work out its direction and velocity. Lets say a red star is travelling towards you at many thousands of miles per hour. The light emitted would be shifted towards the blue (more enegetic) end of the spectrum and the star would appear more blue than it actually is. If it was travelling away then the reverse would be true. I would suppose the headlights would be red shifted aswell. towards the gamma ray end of the spectrum.

Well as far as modern science knows, you won't be going at the speed of light, unless you're a photon (or other (rest-)massless particle) and in that case you do not "feel" time at all. Anyway, what do you mean by, "you're travelling at the speed of light"? Who measures it? I mean that the theory of relativity is basically very relative..:) So you cannot say that one coordinate system is moving faster than the other without defining some reference coordinate system. And according to Einstein any reference coordinate system is as good as the other. This means that if you are like passing some galaxy (we'll lock our reference coordinate system onto that) at a very high velocity like 0.999c (someone sitting on some planet of the galaxy measures your redshift (or Dopplers effect) while you're coming or whatever) then switching on the headlights is basically from your point of view is exactly like it is while you're sitting in your car on the side of the road. So in your inertial system everything is as it is in any inertial system. But on the other hand the rest of the universe will seem a bit funny to you. It'll be from your point of you flatter than "usual" (in the direction that you're going) and every bit of light coming from in front of you (or actually any kind of waves - also gravitational)) will have shifted towards higher frequency and everything behind to lower and if you use your radio to talk to the guy in front of you (sitting still in our reference coordinate system) then you'll hear both of your voices very high pitched and quick (actually I think that you couldn't make any sense of it at that speed).

Um, the big problem is that you can't be going the speed of light. You can be going very near it, but not _at_ it. Here's why: Anything being accelerated has a force acting on it. F=ma, where F and a are vectors. Einstein showed that the above is correct, for velocities not very near c, the speed of light. As v approaches c, _from the point of view outside the accelerating body_, the following appears to happen (same as "happens", really): Length, in the direction of motion, reduces by a factor, gamma. Time passes slower, by a factor, gamma. Mass increases, by a factor, (thats right) gamma. Gamma is defined as 1/((sqr(1-v^2/c^))). (In English, "One over the square root of quantity 1 minus v squared over c squared".) If you plug and chug, you'll find for a v of 0.866, gamma = 2. So, something going _by me_ at 0.866c will seem to have twice the mass, half the lenght in the direction of motion, and it will last twice as long (if it is a radioactive particle), or the second hand will move half as fast (if it is a analog Timex). If you put v = c in the above equation, you'll see gamma equals infinity. That's why the question is nonsense. These are called Lorentz transformations, and have been tested over and over, and never found to be wrong. Indeed, GPS systems have to take the time dilation into account, or loose much (100s of feet) accuracty. Particle accelerators have to take into account the increase in mass, or the particles will hit the walls of the accelerator. One good explaination for why we can't go at c is found in _The Elegant Universe_ by Brian Green. He explains it by saying that in spacetime, all things move at a sort of terminal velocity, c. At rest, all things "fall" through spacetime at c. If you add energy to move through space, you still move at c, but some of your motion through time is reduced. If you get really really close to c in motion, your speed through time gets really really small. BTW, this is from OUTSIDE point of view. What you would see, say, if you were in a ship, accelerating to somewhere, is something like this. You get in ship, head to somewhere 10 light years away. As you accelerate, you just feel acceleration, no time change, no weight gain, no shrinkage (how would you measure? all your meter sticks are riding w/ you!). You do see your destination approaching, _twice as near as it should be_! Say you are cruising at 0.866c, then you would see your destination half as far away as it would be without relativistic effects. So you get there in half the time! BUT, outside observers see your time as slowed, 2 to 1, so every year for you is 2 for them. This is the root of the "twins paradox" which isn' t a paradox at all, just an aspect of nature we don't see every day (unless you work at SLAC!). Do a google search for relativistic effects. There are good simulators out there, to show lots of interesting things that happen when v is near c.

The short answer: nothing. Since the light is traveling at the same speed of the lightbulb, and since you can't add velocities to approach the speed of light (read below), the light goes along with the bulb. Now, about the adding velocities thing... While it's true that if you're on a train and you throw a ball in the direction the train is moving, the ball travels at a velocity equal to its velocity relative to you and the velocity of the train relative to an external observer. But, you cannot do this to reach the speed of light. Sadly, I don't know the background math behind this, but, think about this... if nothing can go faster than the speed of light, how could you reach forward to hit the switch? Bummer, huh

According to Einstein's theory, if one can move close to the speed of light and return to Earth. You will ONLY be 4 years older BUT everyone you know of and so forth will be 50 years older. Also, here's another glitch from Star Trek I have noticed. Now, if the Enterprise's mission is 5 years. Each year they are OUT there, Earth should age 50 years so when they return to Earth in 5 years, Earth should be 250 years OLDER. I seriuosly think the producers didn't take this fact into account when they made the show. The original one as well. I know it is only a show BUT hey, it's pretty close to reality. Who knows, maybe we WILL travel in starships someday and explore the universe. To do what the Enterprise can do, we MUST be able to travel FASTER than the speed of light. Like warp 1 to 9. That is PRETTY fast. It's the only way we can reach other planets. Can all this be explained?

As mentioned already in the answers to this question, it isn't possible (according to general and special relativity) to travel AT the speed of light. In terms of if you were travelling very close to the speed of light (ie: 1mph less than the speed of light): When you switch on the headlights the light will travel away from you (in your space ship) at the speed of light. It will also be travelling at the speed of light to an observer that is standing still as you pass them on your journey.

Ok, we all know that this question is invalid. So let’s stop harping on that point. Let’s pretend for a second that it IS possible to reach the speed of light and stay there. And let's ignore the actual science of light spectrums and shifting paterns for the sake of a simple answer. We’ll use this example; (And let’s keep the ratings fair given that we ARE talking about the impossible.) You are on a train. That train is traveling at the speed of light. You are facing a wall on the train. You turn on a flashlight; Low and Behold! There is the beam of light on the wall! Why? Because the train is traveling at the speed of light WITH you, as is the flashlight. Take the same example, and shine the light facing the wall towards the “engine” of the train (That is to say, the “front” of the train) and low and behold, the beam of light is on the wall at the front of the train! Why? Because the train is traveling WITH you, as is the flashlight. Now, let’s turn on the headlights of this train. What do you know? The headlights are projecting light ahead! Why? Because the headlights are moving with the train! This can easily be proven in a much more minor scale of speed and using mass. Next time you are in the car flying down the highway, flip a coin. The coin does not go shooting out the back window; it goes up and then comes down. Why? Because the coin is traveling WITH you in the car. The point is that this is all (I hate to use the term!) RELATIVE to each other! The speed of light while being a constant is also a very abstract idea. If you really want a question that will draw debate, ask if a person outside of your sphere of speed would see the headlights as you approached them! OH! And in answer to Scrooge's Question; The people in Star Trek NEVER went at the speed of light. They "warped" space to bring the speed of light to an attainable constant.

Well, one of Einstein's proven theories is the speed of light is constant. I'm pretty sure that's it. The example goes as following (I'll update this when I get my book back from school); There is 1 stationary light at Point B and another on a train moving near 100Km/hour at Point A. There is a light detector of some sort at Point C. Both the stationary light and the light on the train turn on when the train reaches Point B. Both rays/beams (what ever you may call it) reach Point C at exactly the same moment/time. That was the experiment used at that time. So my answer for this is the light will stay at the object emitting the light on the spaceship if the light is shining directly infront of it. If the light was shining at an angle either away or towards the center of the ship at a very small angle (2 degrees or so), I suspect that the light will travel sideways but still remain at the same point that the light bulb is at. If it was at a larger angle (15 or 30 degrees), my theory is the light will travel sideways and fall behind, though my theory may be wrong. But keep in mind, as the others have stated oh so many times, that the faster an object moves, the more forces act upon it. So to reach a faster speed, more energy is needed to keep the speed up. As the object reaches near light speed, so many forces/so much force acts upon it that the object will slow down, so an infinite amount of energy is needed to maintain the objects light speed. Also, as I have heard recently... There is a freezer so cold that even light is slowed down (though only a small amount). Crazy, eh?

They might light up the back of your neck. The body will never survive the speed. Just calculate how long it would take just getting up to speed accelerating within safe "G" forces. The physical affects on sub-atomic sizes particle is massive when accelerated in a special place built in texas. On the lighter side. You can "outrun" your headlights driving at night by speeding past 70mph (average) where a object comes into your light and your brakes take longer than the distance of the object to stop.

Breaking news!!! I was wrong. If you were watching the light from within the space ship, you would see the light project ahead travelling at the speed of light because to you, being in the same frame of reference as the spaceship, the space ship is not moving. However, an outside observer not moving in comparison to the spaceship would see the light as I explained in my other answer.

Even if you are traveling at 150000 km/s, a beam of light would still pass you going 300000 km/s or approach you going 300000 km/s. What happens is that as you travel faster and approach the speed of light, distances shorten and time slows down so that light still travels at 300000 km/s relative to you. This is not just a theory... these effects have been observed in experiments. According to Einstein's equations, it is impossible for anything with mass to reach the speed of light. So you couldn't be traveling at the speed of light, but even if you were traveling at close to the speed of light, you would still be able to illuminate and shine a light on a target outside. By Andy Ptak - Astrophysicist team - Teachers Corner - NASA

you would not see the headlights pass the vehicle because you would be traveling at the same speed is my guess.

[Sigh] This questions crops up repeatedly, so bear with me. You and your vehicle -- because you have mass -- CANNOT go at the speed of light. But if you travel at ALMOST the speed of light, then the answer is: You would observe the light from your headlights to be moving at exactly the speed of light. ALL OBSERVERS in any frame of reference measure the speed of light at exactly the same value. This is the core idea of relativity; it has been verified experimentally for over 100 years, now beyond doubt. Reference: Cecil Adams -- The Straight Dope: 'If you turn on your headlights while driving at the speed of light, what happens?' http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_143.html

The problem with this is the word "speed". Speed is a relative concept. What is it that the "speed of light" is being measured relative to? Suppose I'm in the vehicle, and you're on Earth, and I'm travelling at the speed of light relative to you. Then when I turn on the headlights, from your frame of reference, it would appear that the light never left the headlights. Essentially this is because you figure my clock has stopped. From my point of view, everything is normal, light leaves as before. And it's a mistake to assume "you can't travel at the speed of light": because all speeds are relative. There's no problem with me travelling faster than light relative to some moving body, as long as the speed is being measured by a third body. Even some astronomers have made this mistake in the 1970s, leading to confusion about the true distance of quasars. See "superluminal motion"

You couldn't.. all motion ceases at the speed of light.

They would cease to perform their desired function.

Um... Ignoring -O-Unkow's post, let' go with: you'd ride the car, open the lights, unh? but what happened? you dn'T see ligh in front of yu ! it's beside you!

the speed of light is relative to how fast you are going so to you would see the light as if you were stationary.

it would only go as fast as you are

The lights will light up, but the light will not move any faster than you. I was just talking to my wife about this after she read a book about Einstein.

A recurring question here and elsewhere. The best answer is from Cecil Adams' Straight Dope column of June 1988: "If you turn on your headlights while driving at the speed of light, what happens?" http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_143.html No matter how fast you go (up to but never quite reaching light speed) you always see your headlights emitting light at the speed of light. The speed of light is the ONE CONSTANT in all these relativistic scenarios.

The speed of light *relative to what*? As you see it, the light heads away from you at (duh) the speed of light. Actually, you cannot be traveling at the speed of light relative to anyone else: if you are, your mass is infinite ant the entire universe had closed in and crushed you to a point - which has probably given you a headache. But if you are traveling at nearly the speed of light, he will see light crawling ahead of you - and he will see your time so slowed and your space so compressed that you think it is leaving you at the speed of light.

lmao um No I dont think they would do you any good If your goin that fast I dont think you'll see any thing.

No. The two speeds cannot be added together. The speed of light is the fastest thing that travels in our universe (that is proven as of now).

it must be a hell of a car that you own

you would go slower

Here's a classic column from Cecil Adams 'The Straight Dope': If you turn on your headlights while driving at the speed of light, what happens? http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_143.html The answer is based on the fact that you CAN'T travel at the speed of light or faster.

From within your own frame of reference, the light would travel away from you at the speed of light. The local frame of reference is always stationary, though, regardless of its speed relative to an outside observer. I am unaware of any equations that describe motion beyond the speed of light, though the Lorentz transformation starts to spit out imaginary numbers for velocities higher than c. Who knows what *that* means?

Theoretically, a car would have to have zero mass to reach the speed of light. So, it's theoretically impossible. But for the sake of argument, if you could exceed the speed of light, you will, most probably, go back into time. As for what will happen if you turn on your headlights....according to Modern Physics theory, light travels 3x10^8 m/sec regardless of your inertial frame. In other words, you will speed pass the light emitted by your headlights. (....many thanks to my physic prof, who has passed on...who always said "Anything's possible.")

If I'm travelling at some high velocity relative to earth and my time reference has slowed relative to earth (5yrs local time == 50 yrs earth time), then why doesn't earth's time reference relative to me slow in a similar fashion (5yrs earth time != 50 yrs local time)? Is that covered in the Lorentz transforms? If I am travelling away from earth at near c (.95) such that I appear to be moving away from earth at near c and earth appears to be moving away from me at near c, if another ship leaves earth in the opposite direction at near c, what is its "apparent" speed relative to me? Note that earth appears to move away from me at near c and assuming a Lorentz equation will compress the other ship's apparent velocity to less than c what is its apparent speed? Assume the ships are photons which can travel at c (by definition), what is the relative speed of one photon to the other (knowing that earth's relative velocity is c). Substitutute the earth with a ring of perfect fiber optic cable such that a photon will travel in a circle perpendicular to the tragectory of the two opposing photons. What is the relative velocity of all three photons to each other?

"Sadly this question and all others about experiences at the speed of light do not have a definitive answer. You cannot go at the speed of light so the question is hypothetical. Hypothetical questions do not have definitive answers. Only massless particles such as photons can go at the speed of light. As a massive object approaches the speed of light the amount of energy needed to accelerate it further increases so that an infinite amount would be needed to reach the speed of light." "Questions of relative velocity in relativity can be answered using the velocity subtraction formula v = (w - u)/(1 - wu/c2) (see relativity FAQ: velocity addition). If you are driving at a speed u relative to me and you measure the speed of light in the same direction (w = c in my frame), the formula gives v the speed of light in your reference frame as, v = (c-u)/(1 - u/c). For any speed u less than c this gives v = c so the speed of light is the same for you. But if u = c the formula degenerates to zero divided by zero; a meaningless answer. If you want to know what happens when you are driving at very nearly the speed of light, an answer can be given. Within your car you observe no unusual effects. You can look at yourself in your mirror which is moving with the car and you will look the same as usual. Looking out of the window is a different matter. The light from your headlights will always go at the speed of light in your reference frame. It will strike any object in its path and be reflected back. Everything else will be coming towards you at nearly the speed of light, so the light reflected from it will be Doppler shifted to very high frequencies--towards the ultraviolet or beyond. If you have a suitable camera you could take a snapshot. The objects passing are contracted in length but because of the different times of passage for the light and effects of aberration, the snapshot will show the objects you pass as rotated. See the relativity FAQ Penrose-Terrell Rotation." Source and further information: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/headlights.html

nothing could happen because if the light is heading away from you while you are going at the speed of light then light isnt a constent

I would think that you would see the light as it should be... now granted you are going the speed of light but if you think about it logically the source of the light is going the speed of light therefore the light it is emitting would go twice the speed of light (of course that is in a vacuum instead of in air)... think of sitting in a car and throwing something out of it while it is going 60 mph... you throw it at 20 mph usually... but you would add the two together because you were originally going 60 mph and you threw it at 20 mph... therefore it would be going 80 mph (in a vacuum again).

You'll see the next turn on the highway.lol.I think they would go on but not shoot foward.

You wouldn't be able to turn anything on or make any movement. You would be frozen in time since no speed can be added to the speed of light.

I am driving my car at the speed of light and I turn on my headlights. What do I see? Sadly this question and all others about experiences at the speed of light do not have a definitive answer. You cannot go at the speed of light so the question is hypothetical. Hypothetical questions do not have definitive answers. Only massless particles such as photons can go at the speed of light. As a massive object approaches the speed of light the amount of energy needed to accelerate it further increases so that an infinite amount would be needed to reach the speed of light. Sometimes people persist: What would the world look like in the reference frame of a photon? What does a photon experience? Does space contract to two dimensions at the speed of light? Does time stop for a photon?. . . It is really not possible to make sense of such questions and any attempt to do so is bound to lead to paradoxes. There are no inertial reference frames in which the photon is at rest so it is hopeless to try to imagine what it would be like in one. Photons do not have experiences. There is no sense in saying that time stops when you go at the speed of light. This is not a failing of the theory of relativity. There are no inconsistencies revealed by these questions. They just don't make sense. Despite these empty answers, nobody should feel too put down for asking such questions. They are exactly the kind of question that Einstein often asked himself from the age of 16 until he discovered special relativity ten years later. Einstein reported that in 1896 he thought, ``If I pursue a beam of light with the velocity c (velocity of light in a vacuum), I should observe such a beam of light as a spatially oscillatory electromagnetic field at rest. However, there seems to be no such thing, whether on the basis of experience or according to Maxwell's equations. From the very beginning it appeared to me intuitively clear that, judged from the standpoint of such an observer, everything would have to happen according to the same laws as for an observer who, relative to the earth, was at rest. For how, otherwise, should the first observer know, i.e., be able to determine, that he is in a state of fast uniform motion? One sees that in this paradox the germ of the special relativity theory is already contained. Today everyone knows, of course, that all attempts to clarify this paradox satisfactorily were condemned to failure as long as the axiom of the absolute character of time, viz., of a simultaneous, unrecognizedly was anchored in the unconscious. Clearly to recognize this axiom and its arbitrary character really implies already the solution to the problem.'' In 1905 he realised how it could be that light always goes at the same speed no matter how fast you go. Events that are simultaneous in one reference frame will happen at different times in another that has a velocity relative to the first. Space and time cannot be taken as absolute. On this basis Einstein constructed the theory of special relativity, which has since been well confirmed by experiment. Questions of relative velocity in relativity can be answered using the velocity subtraction formula v = (w - u)/(1 - wu/c2) (see relativity FAQ: velocity addition). If you are driving at a speed u relative to me and you measure the speed of light in the same direction (w = c in my frame), the formula gives v the speed of light in your reference frame as, v = (c-u)/(1 - u/c). For any speed u less than c this gives v = c so the speed of light is the same for you. But if u = c the formula degenerates to zero divided by zero; a meaningless answer. If you want to know what happens when you are driving at very nearly the speed of light, an answer can be given. Within your car you observe no unusual effects. You can look at yourself in your mirror which is moving with the car and you will look the same as usual. Looking out of the window is a different matter. The light from your headlights will always go at the speed of light in your reference frame. It will strike any object in its path and be reflected back. Everything else will be coming towards you at nearly the speed of light, so the light reflected from it will be Doppler shifted to very high frequencies--towards the ultraviolet or beyond. If you have a suitable camera you could take a snapshot. The objects passing are contracted in length but because of the different times of passage for the light and effects of aberration, the snapshot will show the objects you pass as rotated.

You'd be too fast to see anything. Why have the headlights on? Where can I get a car like this? o_O

hmm, IT GOES DOUBLE THE SPEED OF LIGHT

Light speeds away from you at the speed of light.

the light would probably zoop right back through your head and out the other side before you could blink

depends on the direction your headlights are pointed at the time..front back or to the side..different things would happen...some good ...some maybe not ha

I would probably say that first of all, time would have stopped for you. Secondly, I dont know enough about physics to give a correct answer about what would happen to the light. I would think that you cannot accelerate light, but then again I really dont know. Nice mind-boggle though :)

As Einstein would have put it, it would shine out in front of you as normal from your perspective as is is relative to your position in space. Others observing you travel across in front of them would see you and the vehicle frozen in time as you fly by. The light rays never moving out in front of you as they are also time frozen, from their perspective. The observers would appear frozen to you too as they too are moving at light speed relative to you. This is the beauty of relativity. Light speed is however impossible as commented by the other people as you develop infinite mass as you approach light speed.

This one has been asked several times before. Here's one: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1857

If you are travelling at light speed you see NOTHING ! The known unverse has shrunk to an infitesimal point in which ever direction you face.

they will project untill reaching the limit of the relm of force driving you foreward, at that point i suspect they will impact atoms (space is not empty) not traveling at the same speed and cause them to reflect the light much the same as a flashlight does now - much like driving in a fog bank

You would probably travel 186,000 miles or more before your lights could be seen behind you.

In empty space, app. 300000 mph. Your lights would travel out the distance equal to your MPH, roughly 300000 feet.

Steven Wright is hilarious!

Ooh it flattens the battery, and the radio goes haywire. Always happens; no idea why.

Then, the light from your headlights is going double the speed of light.

" If you turn on your headlights while driving at the speed of light, what happens? " That's the title of an article by Cecil Adams / The Straight Dope / June 1988: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/709/if-you-turn-on-your-headlights-while-driving-at-the-speed-of-light-what-happens The answer, with which any physicist would agree, is that traveling at CLOSE to the speed of light relative to earth the speed of light you measure is still c. And since your car can't actually REACH c exactly, the question is otherwise meaningless, physics-and-math-wise. This is the question (What's it like to ride along on a light beam?) that inspired Einstein himself to propose relativity.

The light rays will come crashing through the windshield and decapitate you.

You see where you are going clearly!

Photons would not travel faster than the speed of light, partially because you cannot travel at the speed of light to begin with. You can only travel at some fraction, up to, but not including 100% of the speed of light. This is because it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate you to the speed of light. So if you are traveling at 99.9999999% of the speed of light and you turn on your torch, the resulting light will travel away from you at the speed of light. If you are moving toward an observer who sees you as moving at 99.9999999% of the speed of light, he will see your torch light not as the same color as you do. To you it will appear white, but to him, the light will be doppler shifted up, perhaps into the gamma ray range (you'd have to do the math to figure it out exactly). And he'd view this gamma ray "light" as moving at the speed of light, just as you see the white light moving away from you at the speed of light. This is relativity! It's confusing as hell until you start looking at the diagrams that are used to describe it... then it becomes almost comprehensible after much head scratching and steam emitting from your ears.

" If you turn on your headlights while driving at the speed of light, what happens?" (Cecil Adams / The Straight Dope) http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/709/if-you-turn-on-your-headlights-while-driving-at-the-speed-of-light-what-happens

Some think that the speed of light is constant, but it is not, it's a variable and in our Galaxy it measures between 186,291.5 to 186.291.7 miles per second give or take a couple of points ... the limiting factor as always is Gravity ... and I believe some minute(MY NUTE)(SP) subatomic energy absorptions the light from the lights would be pressed against the front of your vehicle (supposedly) I'm rather inclined to believe that light and other sub-atomic have no speed limit under certain conditions and some test indicate that apparently a photon can be in 2 places at the same time which may indicate the true "Absolute" speed which may be twice what we think it is .. that is of course IF the test was valid since matter or energy cannot be in 2 places at once it would have to oscillate between the 2 places to give the appearance of being in 2 places at the same time ... of course I expect to hear a lot of naysayers, But please don't bother hypothesis is neither right or wrong just the efforts of the mind to understand and interpret what we see in a manner that is closer to the facts and fact = truth ... ~Nemo~

You would instantly see that there are about seven other duplicate questions like this one.

Well I am just going to take a shot at this one, and say that the speed of light from those headlights, would be doubled.....Just a guess tho.......+5 for your question........................M.C.S.

You would not be able to turn anything on. You would be frozen motionless forever with time forever still.

I think you would have light. light speed x2

The light will stay in the headlights and never leave. The energy will build up till the bulbs explode :)

This question has been asked and answered many many times on AB before. Like this one: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/828676

If you were driving a car and launched it at 60 mph, from a vehicle that was moving 60 mph, it would shoot ahead of that vehicle for a specified distance, and then maintain that distance. So if you turned on the light of a vehicle moving at the speed of light, it would act as a launching pad, and you would see the light ahead of you for a specific distance which would remain constant.

First part, yes. Second part, you've got the idea! It also has to do with the different frame of reference of the observations.

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1857

Nothing happens to the light. Light is one of the few constants in the universe. If it were possible you would not see the projection of lights in front of you, but this is only theoretical.

We have no idea what conditions are like at those speeds, but it probably races you.

Get that damn light out of my eyes.

In reality, nothing with mass can travel at the speed of light. So I'll answer two ways: one if you are in a real spaceship, traveling very, very close to the speed of light, and the other if you are some hypothetical being traveling at the speed if light. If you are traveling close to, but not at, the speed of light, then you see the light traveling away from you at - guess what - the speed of light. But a "fixed" observer sees, firstly, that the light gets away from you only at the small difference between your speed and the speed of light. But they also see that you are slowed down. Time is passing so slowly for you that the snail's crawl that the outside observer sees for the light traveling away from you is the speed of light for you. And if you are traveling at the speed of light? Then, so far as the observer is concerned, time has stopped for you. Presumably you turned on the lights in that meta-instant before you reached the speed of light. However it may be, the outside observer sees you and the light forever locked together, traveling both at the speed of light. What you see - well, you have asked a physically impossible question,so physics has no answer to it.

Your headlights go Warp 2

If you are driving/flying/doing backflips that fast, would u really need headlights? chances are your gonna be smashed to death in a horrific accident anyway? But if you demand a real answer i reckon there'd be massive internal combustion resulting in the birth of a black hole (somehow) that destroys the World. Especially Sweden. I jest.

Nothing. . According to Einstein E=mc². So any object travelling at the speed of light would have infinite mass. As we know from black holes, the more massive an object, the less chance light has of escaping. Therefore at light speed your headlights would be too massive to emit light. Hope this helps.

You don't turn the lights on. You're long dead.

you would be traveling at light speed with a torch in yuor hand or the light beam would not go no further that the bulb

Firstly, you cannot travel at the speed of light, you can only travel close to the speed of light. Secondly, you have to say in which frame of reference you want the answer. For yourself, you are always still relative to yourself, and light always travels at the speed of light. So as far as you are concerned, the light travels away at its normal speed. But you said you are travelling at nearly the speed of light - presumably past someone else. That person will see you passing at near the speed of light, and the light travelling (as always) at the speed of light. So that person will see the light crawling ahead of you. The way the two views are matched up is that the person you are passing will also see that time for you has slowed down. So the crawl that he sees is the same as the speed of light for you: you are slowed down by the same fraction as he sees the light gaining on you.

You would be traveling twice the speed of light to the trash bin. This has been asked so many times before but I can't be bothered to find it.

I have finally obtained proof that the speed of light can be exceeded because you all have lost your minds at beyond 299792458 mps!

you'r headlights do come on and still project forward.