Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeraph
Good stuff. Ok, let me re-rephrase my question. something is moving at the speed of light. I'm riding a photon that is shot in the opposite direction of the obj moving at the speed of light. From my perspective on the photon moving "backwards" at the speed of light, wouldn't the object I was shot from seem to be moving faster than the speed of light? If we can only move away from each other at the speed of light then kinetic energy must disappear somewhere in there since it doesn't cancel momentum when I'm shot out backwards...which obviously isn't right so I must not be getting something.
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Let v be your velocity and w be the object you were fired from. let u be the observed velocities by a neutral observer. Let c be the speed of light in a vacuum.
U=[(v+w)/(1+vw/c^2)]
To convert your frame of reference to their frame of reference, you need to apply the
Lorentz transformation. You're thinking in relativistic velocities in terms of standard mechanical velocities.