Philosophy Now Forum

For the sake of assumption, let's assume that relativity theories are correct.

Relativity states that you can travel almost at light speed. Let's assume that there is a particle shield and your ship
travels at 99.9 percent C.

If someone shot a beam of light from behind the spaceship, and you looked at the beam of light slowly catch up to the ship...How then would the photon enter your consciousness?

I mean, it would slowly enter your eye at a snails pace, it wouldn't even look like a light beam, you would even be able to see the photon wave itself, it wouldn't feel like normal light, it would look like Rainbow Road. Just by shaking your head once it reached your eye, it would either ghost out of your eye, or become physical and stay inside of your eye.

Or is this not so. Here is an alternative to the above. Even at 99.9 c, the light would still enter your eye at 186,000 mps from all directions, even if it was shot orthogonal or parallel to your flight trajectory. And suddenly, at 99.9c, to 100 c, light would instantly, absurdly change from being 186,000 mps to suddenly stop moving, as if juxtaposed suddenly with no buildup, like a glitch of sorts.

Or is this not so. Here is an alternative to the above. Even at 99.9 c, the light would still enter your eye at 186,000 mps from all directions, even if it was shot orthogonal or parallel to your flight trajectory. And suddenly, at 99.9c, to 100 c, something weird would happen. Despite you travelling at light speed, Light would still move past you at 186,000 mps from all directions, giving the light around you a net speed of warp 2, 2c, double lightspeed.

Vote.

You wouldn't see a thing as it takes more than one photon to trigger the optic-nerve.

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote:For the sake of assumption, let's assume that relativity theories are correct.

Relativity states that you can travel almost at light speed. Let's assume that there is a particle shield and your ship
travels at 99.9 percent C.

If someone shot a beam of light from behind the spaceship, and you looked at the beam of light slowly catch up to the ship...How then would the photon enter your consciousness?

I mean, it would slowly enter your eye at a snails pace, it wouldn't even look like a light beam, you would even be able to see the photon wave itself, it wouldn't feel like normal light, it would look like Rainbow Road. Just by shaking your head once it reached your eye, it would either ghost out of your eye, or become physical and stay inside of your eye.

Or is this not so. Here is an alternative to the above. Even at 99.9 c, the light would still enter your eye at 186,000 mps from all directions, even if it was shot orthogonal or parallel to your flight trajectory. And suddenly, at 99.9c, to 100 c, light would instantly, absurdly change from being 186,000 mps to suddenly stop moving, as if juxtaposed suddenly with no buildup, like a glitch of sorts.

Or is this not so. Here is an alternative to the above. Even at 99.9 c, the light would still enter your eye at 186,000 mps from all directions, even if it was shot orthogonal or parallel to your flight trajectory. And suddenly, at 99.9c, to 100 c, something weird would happen. Despite you travelling at light speed, Light would still move past you at 186,000 mps from all directions, giving the light around you a net speed of warp 2, 2c, double lightspeed.

No, to an observer light travels at c regardless of the velocity of the observer or the source. An observer traveling at c would not observe anything.

Arising_uk wrote:You wouldn't see a thing as it takes more than one photon to trigger the optic-nerve.

It takes at least nine. I mentioned a "beam of light" earlier, so I won't count this as one of your guesses. You may guess again.

thedoc wrote: No, to an observer light travels at c regardless of the velocity of the observer or the source. An observer traveling at c would not observe anything.

So, option 2, then?

What you would see is a photon travelling at the speed of light, but one that was severely red-shifted. So that a photon which was emitted, in the frame of its origin, as blue light might appear to an observer in the spaceship as being a photon in the far radio part of the spectrum.

A_Seagull wrote:What you would see is a photon travelling at the speed of light, but one that was severely red-shifted. So that a photon which was emitted, in the frame of its origin, as blue light might appear to an observer in the spaceship as being a photon in the far radio part of the spectrum.

That's only half of the question. Which option do you vote for?