If you ran faster than the speed of light, would you cast a shadow?
In this hypothetic question, what happens to your shadow when sprinting at inhuman speeds?
Even if you travelled at the speed of light, you would still cast a shadow. Image credit: Félix Bussières/University of Geneva
Asked by Jeremy Blunkett
While we believe it is impossible to travel faster than light, if you were to move at a velocity close to it, you would likely still cast a shadow. Racing at these speeds, the shadow we would create could potentially exhibit some slightly unusual behaviour.
As a shadow is formed when light is blocked, travelling close to the speed of light would cause you to move a significant distance in the time it took for the unblocked photons to form the outline of your shadow. As a result, your shadow would be likely to lag behind you.
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