Relativity question

[RickHaleParker]

If you reach over and flip your headlight switch on do your headlights come on?

Headlights don't do come-ons. They do turn-ons and turn-offs but no come-ons.

[volvolugnut]

yet that speed won't affect the speed of light it's emitting.

That is why a blue or red shift does happens. The ship's velocity adds or subtracts space not velocity to the wave. That is why the word length is in the term Wave Length.

IF the ship velocity did effected the speed of light there would be no shift because the wave would occupy the same length of space it did in the ship, therefore no change in wave length.

I think you have explained this in a a way I never understood before.

If I now understand, if I fire a gun forward from my Volvo while driving forward, the bullet will go faster because of the car speed is added to the bullet initial velocity. The bullet does not have a wave length and does not behave like a light wave.

However, if I sound the horn from my Volvo while driving forward, the sound will not travel faster because the car speed is not added to the speed of sound in air. The horn sound has a wave length and behaves in this case like a light wave.

Is this correct?

volvolugnut

[gnalan]

Headlights don't do come-ons. They do turn-ons and turn-offs but no come-ons.

Sounds like a magazine article.

[RickHaleParker]

I think you have explained this in a a way I never understood before.

If I now understand, if I fire a gun forward from my Volvo while driving forward, the bullet will go faster because of the car speed is added to the bullet initial velocity. The bullet does not have a wave length and does not behave like a light wave.

The car's speed is the bullet's initial velocity. The only thing that adds velocity to the bullet is the expanding gasses in the gun barrel.

A bullet does produce a wavelength. If somebody is shooting at you and barely misses, you will hear the bullet whizz past you and the apparent wavelength of the whizz will shift as it passes you. It is the rate of change in space between the object and the observer is what shifts the apparent wavelength. The actual wavelength does not change just the apparent wavelength. Keep in mind an observer standing behind the shooter would hear a different wavelength then you the target. The second observer would not hear a shift in wavelength as the bullet passes you. Because the rate of change in space between the second observer and the bullet never changes from decreasing to increasing as it does with you.

However, if I sound the horn from my Volvo while driving forward, the sound will not travel faster because the car speed is not added to the speed of sound in air. The horn sound has a wave length and behaves in this case like a light wave.

The horn produces a wavelength like a bullet makes a whizz.

It called Relativity because the relative conditions between two determines the appearance to the observer not Reality. One could say we are all out of touch with Reality.

[volvolugnut]

It called Relativity because the relative conditions between two determines the appearance to the observer not Reality. One could say we are all out of touch with Reality.

That's why I never know what is really going on.

volvolugnut

[abscate]

yet that speed won't affect the speed of light it's emitting.

That is why a blue or red shift does happens. The ship's velocity adds or subtracts space not velocity to the wave. That is why the word length is in the term Wave Length.

IF the ship velocity did effected the speed of light there would be no shift because the wave would occupy the same length of space it did in the ship, therefore no change in wave length.

I think you have explained this in a a way I never understood before.

If I now understand, if I fire a gun forward from my Volvo while driving forward, the bullet will go faster because of the car speed is added to the bullet initial velocity. The bullet does not have a wave length and does not behave like a light wave.

However, if I sound the horn from my Volvo while driving forward, the sound will not travel faster because the car speed is not added to the speed of sound in air. The horn sound has a wave length and behaves in this case like a light wave.

Is this correct?

volvolugnut

That’s right.

The horn makes sound by compressing air into packets which move forward at the speed of sound, about 700 mph at sea level

The air it is compressing is still, wind effects notwithstanding, so your car velocity is irrelevant.

[gnalan]

What if you're on the salt flats doing 710mph and you yell out the window for help, since the air pressure knocked the window out. Would anyone hear you yell, and if so would they hear it before you say it?

[RickHaleParker]

Would anyone hear you yell

No way. The pressure waves ( Sonic Boom ) produced by the vehicle would swamp the pressure waves produce by your vocal cords.

If you where standing in the path of the vehicle it would run you over before the pressure waves reached you. You would never hear it coming because the pressure waves will be trailing the vehicle. This is what is is meant by the bullet you don't hear is the one that kills you. In the example above you hear the bullet whizz delayed. That is, by the time you hear it coming it has done passed you because the sound is trailing the bullet.

[abscate]

Here is the part that most struggle with in relativity

At slow speeds like an R with an automatic time and space are nice and cleanly separated so the concept of velocity, which is space/ time is also clean.

As you approach T5 speeds, commonly called c, the speed of light, this is no longer the case, and space time blur.

So, asking “ how long something takes?” Is complicated by the fact that time is no longer easily measured.

[gnalan]

Here is the part that most struggle with in relativity

At slow speeds like an R with an automatic time and space are nice and cleanly separated so the concept of velocity, which is space/ time is also clean.

As you approach T5 speeds, commonly called c, the speed of light, this is no longer the case, and space time blur.

So, asking “ how long something takes?” Is complicated by the fact that time is no longer easily measured.

Does that mean if you drive fast enough for space and time to blur that you can continue to add distance traveled while at the same time watch the odometer slow down and possibly start to turn backwards?