Question: If you were driving at the speed of light and switched on the lights what would happen?

Phillip Wilkinson answered on 11 Mar 2013:

Great question. Apparently Einstein used to ask himself this same question when he was younger.

Now there’s a few ideas as to what would happen.

As you approach the speed of light, from your position in the car, nothing would appear to be any different. The light from your headlights will either be transmitted at the speed of light relative to your current speed. (If you on a train traveling 100mph, and you threw a ball 10mph, the ball is then travelling at 110mph). Or the light will simply become compressed and will cease to be light at all and become high intensity gamma radiation with a very small wave length.

To an external observer however, they will see you slowly become squashed in relation to the direction you are travelling. Until eventually you are only a atom wide plane. Likewise they will also observe that time is slowing down on your ship, at about 99% of the speed of light you will be running at 1/7th the speed. Theoretically if you hit 100% of the speed of light, then time would stop and you wouldn’t even be able to turn on the lights anyway!

Very difficult (and confusing) question hope this was interesting nonetheless.