• Question: What would happen if a car that was travelling at the speed of light turned the headlights on?

    Asked by Ayrton to Ed, Kerrianne, Nina, Oli, yoyehudi on 8 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Oli Wilson

      Oli Wilson answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      Terrible, terrible things. The driver would be killed, the car destroyed, and everything within a mile or more blown to smithereens. And that’s not even because they turned on the lights – just travelling at speeds even close to the speed of light makes insane things happen! Reality can’t really handle it. Have a read of this article exploring what would happen if a baseball was thrown at 90% the speed of light, and imagine all the effects scaled up for that extra 10% and a car rather than ball: https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/
      Please, for the good of the universe, stick to the speed limits! 😉

    • Photo: Kerrianne Harrington

      Kerrianne Harrington answered on 13 Nov 2017:

      It wouldn’t be able to see :P!

    • Photo: Ed Bracey

      Ed Bracey answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      Cool question!
      I guess if it was possible, as Kerrianne says, you wouldn’t be able to use the light from the headlights because you’d be travelling at the same speed as it!
      Is that right Kerrianne?

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