PoBoy321
06-03-2006, 03:53 PM
OK, I just started reading The Elegant Universe and the first few chapters deal largely with special relativity. Here's my question, and I'm sure it's pretty basicc, but I'm dense and I'm not sure who to ask.
I understand that if I tried to follow a beam of light, travelling at 670 million mph, at a speed of 570 million mph, the light would still appear to be travelling away form me at 670 million mph, not 100 million mph as Newtonian physics would imply.
So if I followed the light for one hour, after an hour it would appear to be 670 million miles away from me, and I would be 570 million miles away from the starting point, so the light would be 1240 million miles away from the starting point, so shouldn't the light have appeared to have travelled faster than 670 million mph from the vantage point of an observer at the starting point?
I understand that if I tried to follow a beam of light, travelling at 670 million mph, at a speed of 570 million mph, the light would still appear to be travelling away form me at 670 million mph, not 100 million mph as Newtonian physics would imply.
So if I followed the light for one hour, after an hour it would appear to be 670 million miles away from me, and I would be 570 million miles away from the starting point, so the light would be 1240 million miles away from the starting point, so shouldn't the light have appeared to have travelled faster than 670 million mph from the vantage point of an observer at the starting point?