Comment

Comment by grishka

Here's one simple thing about relativity and speed of light I can't wrap my head around for the life of me.

In classical physics, forces that act in the same direction, add up. If you forcefully throw an object out of the back of a moving car, its speed at the moment you throw it would be the speed of the car + the speed of the throw. Simple and intuitive enough.

But when you involve near-light speeds... So, if you're moving at 90% of the speed of light, and you have a lightbulb in your vehicle, what would be the speed of the photons coming out of it? Logically, it would be 190% of the speed of light. But apparently that's not how it works. So how the hell does it work then?!

parent grishka 6 years ago

Discussion

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton