Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Traveling at Near Light Speed. What Would it Look Like?

How many times have we seen the light speed effect in the movies or on TV?  You know, the cool streaming stars of Star Trek and Star Wars.  But honestly, what would it look like if you were say, looking out a front view port.  

Well what I think is that the closer you get to C the narrower your point of view.  By this I mean is an effect like going from a wide angle lens to a telephoto at full extension.  One gives you a very wide view field and the other very narrow.  At a significant percentage of C your complete view of the universe would be a narrow point of light straight ahead.  But then that's what I have been able to garner from reading.  I came across the very same question in a recent Dvice article. 

Physics students at the University of Leicester decided to take on the task and do the math and this is what they came up with as you approach light speed and look out a view port:

Humm, not so far off!  But exactly what are we looking at.   Well in a nutshell the Doppler Effect.  Matter of fact this shows that light DOES have properties that are wave like.  But I digress  as you travel, light waves ahead of you are compressed, this would "narrow" the field of view  (and moves the frequency into the blue spectrum and then think about light behind you....and how we know the universe is expanding...hummm) of course as you get within a few thousands of a percentage the doppler would compress the light well past what the human eye can detect so there is a point where everything is completely dark. 


    

6 comments:

kallamis said...

Hmm, not so sure about this. Yeah I know, but if you are close enough to light speed, would there be anything to see actually.
I guess there would be considering that light is moving in every direction possible in the universe.
But what if you were nearing the edge of the universe, on the theory that there is one.
Once you passed the last stars toward the edge, there would be no light coming at you. Only the light from behind.
Wouldn't that give you there, a. (feck now I lost myself), umm, a no light no dark situation?
I know what I am trying to say, it just isn't coming out right.
Lets say light moves in one direction toward the edge, outwards. So if you are moving at light speed, or so close as to not matter, wouldn't you be seeing what nothing is, or would you be seeing just what you were seeing right before you hit that speed permanently?
Yeah I know, I wondered off to the fringe again.
Just a thought, and maybe a silly one, but I think weird anyway, you all know that.

kallamis said...

I'm slightly obsessed with seeing true nothingness. It fascinates me beyond belief. Kind of like looking into the time space vortex you know.

Beam Me Up said...

You have to remember that light doesn't always act like matter. As long as you are traveling slower than C then there will always be "something" to see relative to you. But the narrowing and the redshift are proved out in math. What screws with my head is what light does locally. Think about this....you are holding a light so that it shines in your eyes at full arm extension. Does it or does it not red shift as you approach C. Think about it for a moment before you answer. Remember we are talking about .9 C or above, no arguments about energy, just the single question......

Beam Me Up said...

seeing nothingness? you know I thought this would happen when they went below the width of a photon....when it didint happen then I was real close to gibbering at that point.

Beam Me Up said...

awwwwwwwwwwwww dang it alll ya aint no fun

Beam Me Up said...

seeing nothingness? you know I thought this would happen when they went below the width of a photon....when it didint happen then I was real close to gibbering at that point.