Your Driving 60MPH with the headlights on, at what speed is the light from your headlights traveling?
600967
No there is no 'summation' of speeds involved with light.  Light is Electro-Magnetic Energy, although light travels as particles as well as waves.  In this Universe the speed of light is a constant, roughly 186,000 miles-per-second, or 300,000 km/sec or 300 Mega-Metres / sec.  Unless some POWERFUL external force acts upon light, it cannot change speed.  This entails the gravity of black-holes and such. (Not even light can escape from them.)\n\nA vehicle might weigh somewhere in the neighbor-hood of 3,300 lbs. (Approximately 1,500 Kg, for those of you who have not learned to count properly, just yet ...)\nCheck out da' math ...\n\n60mph = 100 kmph = 27.77r mps. \n(1,500 Kg x 27.77r mps) / 9.81 mps = ~ 4,246 N\n\nI doubt, very seriously, that a little over 4,000 Newtons is enough force to even put a dent in the factor of light-speed.  For more info, look-up Einstein's Theory of Realtivity' (Although I believe 90% of it to be short-sighted ancient crap ...)  This subject is covered in it ...\n(umm covered in Einstein's Theory, not copvered in crap .. which err .. is the same thing at times ...
1076587
it depends how fast u go. lol
79821
Simple answer is NOTHING.  This is the explaination:  When you are traveling in a car at 70 MPH and there is a bug flying around in the car (say 0.5MPH), the bug is also traveling at 70 MPH ().5MPH can be ignored as bug is flying around in the car with null effect on the speed).  This is the part of theory of relativity.  Now let's see our car is traveling at the sped of light, when you turn the light on, the rays are traveling at the same spped and you see no effect of light (i.e. still dark-if driving at night).  If you just slow down at little (say 5%) then you will see light just ahead of the car and same applies as if you spped up the car slightly, it will be still dar and you may see back of the car lit (light left behind) for having lheadights in the front.
185601
Another way to see it is to consider acceleration versus constant speed. If you're going 60mph your position is increasing at that constant rate, but if you're pushing on the accelerator your speed is going 60,61,62 etc.. so your speed (which is your position vs time rate) is increasing. That is a varying rate. Doesn't have to be strictly increasing though. You could be speeding up then slowing down then back up again. Or maybe accelerating or decelerating faster, then slower. It can be any combination as long as you're not constantly going at one speed.
806280
There has been one careless conversion of 50 mph to not quite the correct number of ft/sec.  Remember that 60 mph = 88 ft/sec exactly.\n\nS = V^2 / 2A, and V = 88 * 50 / 60, so S = 74.691. . . feet.
414243
OK, traveling at light speed is impossible, just as Einstein proposed when he said that light speed is a limit speed.  However in the fiction part of it, lets assume you are traveling in a space shift at that speed, then nothing happened and you would see the light bulb as if you were traveling at a lower speed, that is because of relativity. You both are traveling at the same speed, so the relative speed between you and the light bulb is zero.  I hope this helps you and I'm adding a link so you can study a little bit more on those subjects.
439947
u might have something in your car drawing extar power which is making them dim, or the lens that covers the headlights might be yellowed from the sun.
902581
The moment you hit the speed of light, time would stop for you, so it would be pretty hard (impossible) to turn the darn lights on!\n\nSaid another way, as you approach the speed of light, the outside observer sees you slowing down; when you hit the speed of light, it would take the observer an infinite amount of time to see any change in your state.\n\nNow, suppose you left your headlights on the whole way, what would everyone see?\n\nAs you approached the speed of light, the light is still reflecting off the objects around you, so the observer, and you, continue to see the reflected light. Once you hit light speed, however, the energy transfer required to turn heat into light wouldn't occur, so no one would see the photons. Of course, since you're traveling at the speed of light at that point, everyone would see you hit the object.\n\nOr this way... the light leaving your headlight changes it's frequency in proportion to the speed you're moving, once you hit light speed, the light would become matter! Of course, the wave packet that is light + your car wouldn't are too much, since time wouldn't exist for you anymore.\n\nHave a nice trip!
1075094
Of course they'll work. The question is if you will see them. You can't travel at the speed of light, anyway, or physics is wrong, so nobody would be able to give you an answer. \n\nAssuming you were just really close to the speed of light, you would still see them. Einstein discovered that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant to ALL observers, no matter how fast the source of light is going relative to the observer. So at any speed, you can see your headlights just fine.
177628
Actually, yeah.\n\nAlright, 600mph is 965,606 meters/hr. 965606 meters/hr is 268.2 meters/sec. This is 8.9408e-5% of the speed of light (3e+8 m/s). Following the time dilation formula, for each 12hr period, you'd gain 0.0193104 seconds.\n\nDo this every day for a year and you gain 7.0531 seconds. Do this for 50 years straight and you've just prolonged your life by 5.8776 minutes. Congratulations!\n\nIn case you're wondering, the time dilation formula is:\n\nT = To / sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)\n\nwhere T is the "time that changes" in seconds, To is the "normal" time in seconds, v is the velocity in m/s, and c is the speed of light in a vacuum in m/s.
228021
Some people would argue the logic of a space craft having headlights at all, others might find fault in the fact that, physically, nothing with mass can ever travel at the speed of light.  But lets put that aside.\n\nThe speed of light is constant in any frame of reference, no matter who is "watching" it, it always travels with respect to them at the speed of light (c).\n\nIf you are in a space ship already traveling at the speed of light [with respect to some outside observer], when you turn on the headlights, the light will move away from you at the speed of light.\nIf some outside observer (who you are flying past at the speed of light) watches all this, they would, too, see the light travel at c with respect to them.  But since you and the light are traveling both at the speed of light with respect to the observer, you and the light would be keeping up with eachother.
671137
Actually....according to Einstein...if you could survive traveling at that speed the answer would be yes. Einsteins theory states the light from your headlights would be traveling at the speed of light! Let me make this simple...if the auto you were driving was travelling at the speed of light the light from the headlights at any given point in your travel would still be traveling forward again at the speed of light. His theory also states that at the speed of light the only variable that changes is time. Personally, I dont believe in the theory, in particle physics it has been proven that paired particles "know" when their particle twin has had a change of state regardless of how far away from each other they are...this being said...some form of communication between the two must travel faster than the speed of light!
506771
Actually by what Einstein explained, da light will still be in  front of da car, it won't go behind u no matter how fast u r going even if u r faster dan da speed of light. Weird? rit. I too thought so, It was explained in discovery channel. Well I'll try 2 explain it 2 u, But it wud hav been easier if I cud actually show it by som animations. When u r travellin at da speed of light, time stops. Ya it does. Time is somthin like per user setting, it is unique for u & each & every one. Think dat ur carrying an Einstein's clock, which is a simple devise with 2 mirrors facing each other with a photon bouncin of the mirror. Each time it bounces from a mirror u'll hear a tic sound, that will b 1 second for u. Say u travel at a speed little less dan light u r movin forward but da photon has 2 move a lot more distance than it initially had been, which was in a straight line, but now it's motion will b som what like a hypotenuse, so it has 2 travell more distance dependin on ur speed. So ur 1 sec will not be da same as 1 sec is for som 1 on earth. So actually ur headlight will be actually movin faster dan u no matter what
302444
sound-330m/s in air medium\nlight-299,297km/s
688056
This question comes up very regularly. If you do a search you will find it has been answered dozens of times in the past few months.\n\nThe speed of light is an absolute constant. It doesn't matter what speed you are travelling at the light will always be travelling away from you at the same speed: the speed of light.\n\nThe freaky part is that the light from your headlights would seem to be travelling away form you at the speed of light (C), but to an observer who was sitting still the light would also appears to be travelling away from them at the speed of light. How can that happen? Well it's one of the tricky bits of relativity, but part of the solution lies in understanding that although light never slows down or speeds up relative to any observer it does change frequency.\n\nSo to you the light from your headlights will look quite normal, but to someone sitting still your headlights will appear to be emitting x-rays. The light would be invisible to them.\n\nThe corrolary of that is that any light approaching your windshield will be equally shifted into the x-ray part of the spectrum. Although the headlights will be emitting visible light, any time they strike an object and reflect back they will reflect back extremely low frequency light that is invisible to the human eye.\n\n\nSo no, it won't do a damn bit o good to turn on your headlights. That's not because the light won't travel, it will travel just fine. The problem will be that any light that reflects back off the road will be invisible to the human eye.
641871
Dear Tony Cologne,\n When you say a red car appearing to move faster, do you mean to the human eye or to the device that the cops use. I think you may have some confusion that is evident in popular lore about the Doppler shift. \nHowever, you might have a point about the cops coming to a complete stop and then catching up again within a quarter mile. At 37 mph a quarter mile is 24 seconds. That means the whole time they are stopping it is adding to your lead as well as the whole time they are accelerating to catch up. Then once they surpass your velocity they have to exceed it enough to catch up within what is left of the 24 seconds they started with. Plus, nobody pulls over right away the instant the lights start flashing. If you had a savvy lawyer you might have a case, plus the judges know these cops usually embellish the truth. Who cares, its a traffic ticket, might as well fight it and have some fun. Its not like you'll get the death penalty if you lose.
1065439
The speed of light - it can't go any faster!\nThere will be a distortion however, called blue shift.\nThe perceived (by a stationary observer) frequency of the light would increase, and the wavelength would decrease, so that the velocity is constant v=fλ\nThe distortion would be infinitesimal 30 parts in 186000*60*60.\n\nSound would experience a similar distortion, so that if a vehicle sounds its horn as it drives past, there is a perceived frequency change in the sound.  This is called the Doppler Effect - there is a link at the bottom of the blue shift link... (see also red shift)