What effects might be experienced as your velocity approaches the speed of light?

Hello ceowang,

As your velocity approaches the speed of light, distances you observe
shorten, your mass decreases and time for you slows down.    Your mass
will decrease because nothing with mass can reach the speed of light. 
Time will slow down so that light still travels at 300000 km/s
relative to you.

Here are some web sites that go into more specific detail.

Imagine the Universe
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970102c.html

Special Relativity
http://www.mtnmath.com/whatth/node50.html

I am driving my car at the speed of light and I turn on my headlights.
What do I see?
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/headlights.html

I hope that answers your question
pba

Keywords Used: 
Approach speed of light
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=approach+speed+of+light&btnG=Google+Search

If it was possible for you to travel near the speed of light, three
things relative to you are affected -- time, length and mass. Time
runs slower for you (time dilation), the length of your body relative
to the direction of motion decreases (fitzgerald-lorentz contraction),
and your body mass increases. As your body increases in mass, the
gravitational pull of that body and around it becomes tremendous that
it will crush you to death. This is why scientists agree that for us
to accelerate near lightspeed is an impossibility. If we are going to
travel by rocket, as we gain mass, the more force is needed to push
that mass forward. More force means more fuel and given that the
thrust of the rocket is constant, it will not be enough to move us
forward and so ultimately we will return to our normal state of
existence far from the weird world of traveling near lightspeed.

You will find more info through this link:
://www.google.com/search?q=%22speed+of+light%22+%22what+effects%22&sa=Google+Search&cat=&hl=en

Feilong

Hi ceowang

         
 Failong thinks that your mass will increase and peggy that it will
 decrease.

  'are we being confused yet?'

In reality, there will be no effect. 

 In special relativity all inertial systems feel the same. 

The speed, that is relative speed, is a property of
any pair of systems,  it is not 'your' characteristics. 

 No absolute speed has been defined. It is a classical thinking to
imagine
that 'close to the speed of light' you will experience weird effects
yourself.

 Using google to understand relativity has some dangers: Physics is
not a collection of facts and factoids but rather a deductive
reasoning about data.

 Most people still do think clasically (at any speed) 
 -- and ga researchers, as the answers show,  are only human.... 

Sorry about that

hedgie

Re your transparency question, this URL says it happened at T=2700 C
 http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=boom_map_red_green_02.jpg&cap=This%20image%20of%201,800%20square%20degrees%20of%20the%20southern%20sky%20was%20taken%20using%20the%20BOOMERANG%20telescope%20for%2010%20days%20from%20December%201998%20-%20January%201999.%20The%20apparent%20size%20of%20the%20moon%20is%20at%20the%20bottom%20right.%20This%20image%20shows%20the%20dis
ant%20Universe%20as%20it%20transitions%20from%20a%20glowing%202700%20deg%20C%20plasma%20to%20a%20transparent%20gas,%20about%2014%20billion%20years%20ago.

E=mc2 - as you approach the speed of light your mass will increase and
you will require more and more energy to speed up further up to the
point where you need infinite energy to reach the speed of light.
Therefore nothing with mass can move at the speed of light. Protons
(light) can move at the speed of light because they have no mass - I
read this somewhere but it's hard to image something with no mass.

Darrenw

  " your mass will increase .."  is a standard  cliche, which people read
 somewhere - and do not know what it means.  This is not a newsgroup, to have
 a flame wars in and so it is not enough to repeat the chants.

 The words 'approaching a speed' and word 'mass' are not well defined and so
 the answer has to be ambiguous, unless the words are defined.  That's what
I have done partly in my comment: speed can mean relative speed of two 
inertial observers. Acording to basic postulate of SR, both observe the same
physics.  

 What I have described are two inertial observers,
 moving with a large, constant speed, with respect to each other.

 Let's say the relative speed is close to c (that is one
 meaning of approaching). If each observer will measure his/her own mass,
 s/he will find it is 'normal' - let's say  50kg.

It is call a rest mass.  It is not going up or down.

Now, if you thing my statement is wrong, please do say so - but address the
statement in precise terms.

hedgie