If a car is travelling faster than the speed of light, do the headlights still work? If you can help because i really need to know i am going on a trip with my car tomorrow!
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Google tachyons. That's about the best you can do.
With our current understanding, any particle that has mass must travel slower than the speed of light. Any massless particles must travel at the speed of light.
Additionally the speed of light is constant relative to the observer. If your car were traveling at 99% of the speed of light, the light leaving your car would be escaping your headlights at the speed of light relative to you. (A stationary observer would also see the light escaping at the speed of light, but only 1% the speed of light faster than you, hence the need for Lorentz transformations).
As for faster than light travel, there is no evidence that it occurs with any particles in the detectable universe. With that in mind, good luck with your road trip tomorrow.
Jonathan Wheeler
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