If light could bend, would it be moving at the same speed forward and simply accelerate sideways?
404526
Dan's answer is good. Kacey misunderstood the question and then got it wrong to boot; the speed of light is constant only in a vacuum. In materials it is slower, and slower in a prism than in air.\n\nBut you weren't asking about light bending in a prism, were you? You were asking about it bending in space, around a massive body.
8700
no. well, its absolutely impossible to travel at the speed of light, but lets pretend you can so i can actually give you an answer to the question. The speed of light is actually the ultimate speed limit to the universe, nothing can travel faster than light, so although you would expect the light to be going at twice the speed of light (you plus the speed of light)it can't because it is physically impossible for even light to travel faster than the speed of light so it would be going at the same speed of you and not reach any path in front of you.  Of course, if you turned on your headlights before you started moving, the light would always be one step ahead of you.\n\nbut again, this situation couldn't happen anyway since you can't get to the speed of light, and if you want to know why, look at some of my answers to other questions about time travel (which involves velocity distorting time) and shining flashlights and such.
233087
this is where relativity comes into play. It depends from what viewpoint. speed is always relative to a "fixed" point (which might not be so "fixed" after all). get my drift?
669938
The universe, from your reference frame, would be length contracted into a single plane perpendicular to your direction of motion, thus enabling you to cross it by traveling no distance. Time for you would be stopped completely, thus you would travel this no distance in no time, at a speed of precisely c in your reference frame (light does that in every reference frame), despite the fact that by definition you are stopped in your own reference frame. Every other light ray would also travel at c in your reference frame and so would pass you in a finite period of time, except time would never move forward and so it wouldn't actually go anywhere. If you looked outside at the infinitesimally thin slice of universe, you would find that the area no distance ahead of your light ray is in the future of the origin (as viewed from any valid reference frame) and the area no distance behind it would be in the past. The beam you are riding on would have no frequency and would appear as a constant electric or magnetic field. Since the beam you are riding on is still traveling at c, it would therefore have infinite wavelength and so the field in question would permeate out to infinite distance in front of and behind you - not that it matters because there is no universe in either place. Speaking of the universe, every particle in it would appear to you to be infinitely massive and the universe would thus collapse on itself infinitely fast, if only there were time for it to do so.\n\nBy the way, there is a reason the speed of light is not considered a valid reference frame in special relativity. This is it.
436694
Technically no.  As you get closer and closer to the speed of light the weight of objects grows and grows so that eventually it will stop accelerating.\n\nOne thing that is possible is subspace, freespace, or wormhole travel, all of which are the same thing.  This is where space bends so that the distance is made shorter.  An example of this is traveling to the other side of the world.  You can go around the world, or you can go straight through the center (this is impossible), which distance is shorter.  To achieve subspace travel you must open up a big enough portal of quantum foam, or the space between the nucleus of an atom and its electrons.  We can not currently do this because we do not have the ability to make cold fusion which is the only 'safe' way to supply enough power.  Navigation, however, is a completely other story.\n\nhope this helps answer your question.
960079
You've lost the point of the equation.  Squaring the speed of light will give you the energy released, not an enhanced speed of light.
784353
Good question, shows you are thinking.\n\nPresent technology contends that only light, pure energy, can go as fast as the speed of light.\n\nTaking that theory to heart, if a space ship actually achieved the speed of light it would turn into pure energy (light) and cease to exist as a solid object. The test pilot would theoretically commit suicide in an attempt to learn if it was possible.
935501
Well theoretically you wouldnt be able to travel at the speed of light. At the speed of light yoru mass would become infinite and time would virtually stop for you. But at the speed of light the light would still be infront of you. Think of it this way if you are in a race and the runner directly infront of you is traveling at the same velocity as you you would neither fall behind nor would you catch up. So the light would be in front of you.
64267
Well, if you're traveling faster than light, then the light can never be in front of you.  There would be just a big nothing, probably drive you crazy if you looked at it.  I know, I come from andromeda.  We travel through space backwards so we can see where we're going.
145156
If you go in what you think is a straight line, no, you will never come to an end, or a wall, but it is very probable that you will actually be going in curves. Space is probably very warped, we already know that mass bends light.
1048247
There may be objects (tachyons) that move faster than light, up to perhaps infinite speeds.\nHowever, nothing already slower than light can accelerate to or beyond the speed of light.
10713
no, only things traveling at speeds close to the speed of light experience the distortion of time.  Light itself doesn't have mass or anything, it's an electromagnetic wave.  And even if it did, time is only distorted for the thing thats moving at the high velocities, so you wouldn't ever know it.
970195
This is one of the oldest questions in the world, after Einstein came out with his special relativity.  The answer is that no matter how fast you are going, your headlight beam is STILL shining ahead at the speed of light. This is exactly what the equations say, and it works.  If it wasn't true, then all the giant particle smashers in the world costing billions of dollars wouldn't even work.
1011227
Love to give you specifics, but don't know how.\n\nTheoretically, what you suggest is possible by relativistic theory. There are things called "tachyons" which are these kinds of rays which reverse time - well not "reversing" it, but definitely messing it all around.  Einstein said that nothing could accelerate to faster than speed of light without becoming infinite mass - but "...Einstein said nothing about entities already traveling at that speed or greater..." (Prote in K-Pax).  \n\nSo who knows - is it around the corner for us?  Probably not.  Is it possible?  I love this universe, so I say yes.  Keep surprising me...
1028951
The example of each person going faster than the previous assumes a consistent additive nature of speed which unfortunately falls apart (shown by experimentation) as your speed approaches the speed of light.\n\nSpeed is not absolute in the sense that there isn't a universal stationary reference point.  If there were, then the example will apply.  According to experiments, however, something travelling away from you at light speed will do so regardless of whichever direction you happen to be moving.  This is not something to reason about (nobody arbitrarily made up this rule so that philosophers can find loopholes around); it's just what's been observed so far.\n\nThe Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light explains it a lot better than I can.  Jump to the section "Constant velocity from all reference frames" for the discussion applicable to this example of yours.\n\nHowever, an article at http://science.howstuffworks.com/news-item6.htm suggests that at least two experiments (pending validation) may have found exceptions?
62229
Actually, yes. traveling forward in time is definately possible, but we're not sure about back. \n\nVelocity distorts time. The faster you go, the slower time goes for you. This effect is negligable unless you are going very close to the speed of light. In fact the formula is:\nt'= t/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)\nwhere t' is the time that has passed for a stationary observer, t is the time that has passed for you, sqrt means square root and ^2 means squared. As you can notice, when v is small, since c^2 is so huge, you get a miniscule decimal, and 1 minus that number is basically as small as .999999999999999 or something very very close to one, and so t' stays basically the same as t and time is not really affected. As v gets larger(it can never be the speed of light, then the denomonator would be zero) that fraction becomes closer to 1, so when you subtract it from one, the denomonator gets smaller and smaller, meaning t gets smaller(in order for t' to remain constant) this means that time slows down for the object moving at such velocities! time slows down, so it would feel like lets sayThis formula is correct, it is part of Einstein's theory of relativity, and I have had to derive it myself from ordinary mechanics formulas. \n\nThis proves the formula:\nAccording to the same factor, length also contracts. It has been observed in certain tiny particles coming to the earth's surface. These particles have a certain lifespan before they become unstable and decay. They are also moving at a certain speed. (which is very fast; close to the speed of light.) You should simply be able to calculate v=d/t (velocity=distance/time) to find out how far they would travel. However, they somehow travel farther than that. When this calculated distance is put into that formula, we come up with the correct distance they actually travel! \n\nSo yes, as you get faster and faster, since time slows down for you, theoretically, you could be moving at these speeds for a short time and time will seem to be moving normally for you, but have years and years pass for everyone else, thus traveling forward in time.
460834
I think you are asking about the change in direction or "bending" of a light ray when it is incident to a boundary between media at a nonperpendicular angle. What seems to me to be key to understanding this is the idea that you can think of a "wavefront" of a light beam, very much like a water wave, and that wavefront motion is always perpendicular to the wavefront (ref. 1 and following pages). Also you can think of the wavefronts as wheeled axles rolling from pavement onto grass, and turning the axle as first one wheel hits the grass, then the other. Each wheel slows down on reaching the grass (ref. 2). The first to reach it turns the axle and the second straightens it out. The result is that the axle and direction of motion have turned.