If a digital mirror is accelerated to the speed of light in the +x
direction and a beam of light is shot toward the mirror in the -x
direction will the resultant reflection +x direction from the beam of
light coming off of the traveling mirror be the speed of the mirror
plus the speed of light essentially doubling  the speed of light?

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Clarification of Question by azakai-ga on 14 Dec 2005 09:03 PST

Will this increase exponentially strengthen laser technology?

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 Frozen Light; July 2001; by Lene Vestergaard Hau, sidebar by Graham
P. Collins; 8 page(s)

EVERYONE KNOWS OF THE SPEED OF LIGHT AS one of the unshakable
properties of the universe. It's not surprising, then, that
experiments to radically alter light's speed require some serious
equipment and hard work. Running such an experiment requires first a
careful tune-up and optimization of the setup and then a long period
of painstaking data gathering to get a consistent set of measurements.
At the Rowland Institute for Science in Cambridge, Mass., our original
slowlight experiments typically took place in stints lasting 27 hours
nonstop. Instead of breaking for meals, we learned to balance a slice
of pizza in one hand, leaving the other clean to flip mirrors in and
out on the optics table during 38 seconds of total darkness at a
crucial stage of each run.

Our goal was to drastically slow down light, which travels through
empty space at the universe's ultimate speed limit of nearly 300,000
kilometers a second. We saw the first sign of light pulses slowing
down in March 1998. As happens so often in experimental
physics-because it can take so many hours to get all the components
working together for the first time-this occurred in the wee hours of
the morning, at 4 A.M. By July we were down to airplane speed. At that
time I had to go to the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen to teach a
class. I remember sitting in the plane marveling that I was traveling
"faster than light"-that I could beat one of our slow pulses to
Denmark by a full hour.

The short answer is "no".  The speed of light reflecting off a mirror
is not influenced by the speed and direction of the mirror.

The theory of relativity comes into play.  This little illustration
may help illuminate things.

The relativity train went by the station at three-quarters the speed
of light.  A thief on the train, having stolen the treasure, exited
the train in his private craft that could accelerate to half the speed
of light.  The thief thought he was traveling at half the speed of
light relative to the train, and therefore at one and a fourth times
the speed of light relative to the ground, fast enough to escape any
laser fire from the ground when the alert went out.  After the thief
in his private craft flew past the security guard on the ground, he
fired his laser at the thief, hitting him.  The thief didn't
understand how to calculate his speed relative to the ground taking
the theory of relativity into account, or that the speed of light is
constant in any reference frame.

Azakai,

To clarify, in the previous comment, I was referring to the speed of
light in a vacuum.  The speed of light varies in different mediums. 
The speed of light thru water, for example is slower than thru a
vacuum.  In theory, a particle could travel thru water faster than the
speed of light in water.  The same is not true of a vacuum.

After you have brushed up on relativity from some of the helpful links
elids provided you, you might want to calculate the speed of the thief
in his craft relative to the ground.

God 102395

God 104596

God 345922

God 560032

 

All please report to galaxy room 421

 

Take your seats ? it has been determined that you will all be in
charge of the milky way galaxy.

 

Decide amongst yourselves how you would like to proceed.  First I
suggest some team building excercises.   As you will be watching over
this galaxy.

 

Go ahead 345922

 

"Thank You, first I want to say thank you for the opportunity.  Next I
suggest we watch the evil in the galaxy and make sure we know where
and what it is doing at all times."



"560032 here - do we get to communicate with the other galaxys' gods?"



"Actually it is too far to travel between galaxies because we made it
so mankind can never travel fast enough to get anywhere and so we
can't either."



"But we're gods."



"That doesn't matter - einstein said light could only go up to one speed."



"Oh."

Azakai, you have to remember that the theory of relativity is just
that -- a theory.  However, it is the best, most complete theory we
have to date.  It is 100% accurate?  Probably not.  As science
matures, we may discover how to accelerate things to speeds faster
than the speed of light.  We're unfortunately not there yet.

So, based on our current understanding of science, the answer to your
question is still no.

Per relativity, if we were traveling along with the mirror, we would
measure both the incident and reflected rays of light to be traveling
at the speed of light.  Or, if we were stationary relative to the
mirror, we would also measure both the incident and reflected rays of
light to be traveling at the speed of light.

It's that aspect of special relativity that causes interesting
phenomena like time dialation and length contraction.

As a reminder, the mirror could only be accelerated to just under the
speed of light.