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bumper sticker (piefed.cdn.blahaj.zone)
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[-] glorkon@lemmy.world 79 points 1 month ago

Clever, I like it. I wonder how many people read it and have no clue what it means.

[-] RiceMunk@sopuli.xyz 70 points 1 month ago

Exercise for the reader: Assuming average human eyesight, how many picoseconds away from a collision are you if you can read that size of text and the relative velocity between you and the car ahead of you is large enough that the red label is sufficiently blueshifted to look blue?

[-] Zkuld@lemmy.world 67 points 1 month ago

for 800nm to 400nm, we need gamma=2. So v~.86c. At 20m this gives you ~80ns.

[-] moriquende@lemmy.world 41 points 1 month ago

For perspective, this speed is:

  • 928 157 450 kilometers per hour
  • 576 730 301 miles per hour

In one second, you would travel around:

  • 258 000 kilometers
  • 160 000 miles

Which is around 6.43 times around the Earth's equator.

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 month ago

But how many Olympic sized swimming pools full of jello?

[-] groet@feddit.org 17 points 1 month ago

About 3 large boulders the size of a small boulder.

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 month ago

Did you see the boulder post too?

We are all the size of boulders on this blessed day.

[-] moriquende@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Depends on the flavor

[-] fartographer@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

So, some paint might get exchanged?

[-] not_woody_shaw@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago
[-] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

He caught up in a flash!

[-] glorkon@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago

The sticker should also say something like "But don't worry, we're going to be evaporated in a huge explosion anyway, due to the gigantic release of energy when you crash into my car in a few nanoseconds."

[-] janus2@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 month ago

does the observer have to be able to see the sticker with normal human eyesight? if so that constrains distance (which maybe doesn't matter?)

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 month ago

At that point it’s like the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey

[-] redsand@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 month ago

I want to know how fast you need to go to be color shifted on a traffic camera. The more I think about it the less likely getting enough light to be picked up by the camera might be an issue even with perfect placement

[-] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago

I think the problem would be getting enough reflected light and not too much radiant light from the compression and/or fusion plasma.

[-] rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.works 49 points 1 month ago

So 75000km/s is too fast? Boooo, get off the road grandad!

[-] Vex_Detrause@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

So is the reader fast or would it work the other way where the car with sticker is fast?

[-] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 43 points 1 month ago

If the sticker is blue, one or the other of you is about to cease being biology and start being physics.

[-] glorkon@lemmy.world 41 points 1 month ago

Even then, a BMW would tailgate and flash its headlights at you on a German autobahn.

[-] curled@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 month ago

Anyone would do that on an autobahn, get out of the passing lane slowpoke xD

[-] far_university1990@reddthat.com 3 points 1 month ago

Best thing is when small car from 1990 push away large bmw or porsche because they have 900 hp engine with dual turbo and nitrous injection.

I love sleeper car.

[-] Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I am not sure i understand. Is it something to do with redshift?

[-] stray@pawb.social 45 points 1 month ago
[-] Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

Damn it. Imgur is blocked in the UK. Cant see that image.

[-] expatriado@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

you're going way too fast, shifting into UV now

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 month ago
[-] Chef_Boyargee@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Probably for the better. Even with it having Milla Jovovich, it wasn’t very good.

[-] stray@pawb.social 5 points 1 month ago

Oh, I didn't realize. I wanted to upload it, but Lemmy wouldn't let me, so I just picked somewhere. Try the original link:

[-] ulterno@programming.dev 8 points 1 month ago

No, it has to do with blueshift.

[-] Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Right, thanks for the explaination...

Incidentally, my limited understanding and 5 seconds of research tells me the blueshift and redshift are directly related. One is linked to lower speeds and one to higher speeds. The sticker itself is red, so the joke is saying you must be travelling at some fraction of the speed of light to see the sticker as red and if you were going slower it would appear blue.

So it would seem to me in my very limited understanding that this is in fact, to do with redshift....

[-] ulterno@programming.dev 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I was trying to be funny, but the 2 are related as in they are opposite cases of the same underlying phenomenon.

The sticker itself is red, so the joke is saying you must be travelling at some fraction of the speed of light to see the sticker as red and if you were going slower it would appear blue.

I'm not sure if you actually understand it and just did a brainfart while typing, or actually don't understand it well, so I'll just explain...

  • In both cases (redshift and blueshift), you need to be going fast enough relative to the sticker for either of them to happen in any noticeable way. Although it still happens even if you are going only 1 cm/s
  • The sticker is red and you will see it being red if you are not moving relative to the sticker. i.e. if the car is parked and you are just standing behind it, it will be red (don't take my word for it. Go stand in front of a red thing and look at it to find out that you see red colour)
  • If you are going away from the sticker, you will observe a redshift. And since the sticker is red (let's assume for simplicity that it is the reddest of red (whatever that would mean)) the redshift will make it go infrared and hence you won't be able to see it with human vision.
  • If you are going towards the sticker, you will observe a blue shift and you can use the crude, but useful VIBGYOR to deduce that if you are not fast enough to see Blue, you can expect to see either of Orange, Yellow, Green.
  • This effect is similar to the phenomenon that occurs to sound. i.e. when a car comes towards you with the horn continuously blowing, you will hear a higher pitch and when the car with the horn blowing is going away from you, you hear a lower pitched horn sound. The reason this is more easily observable with sound, is because sound in air is slow enough for us to notice this.

Bonus: I was playing the game X4: Foundations and realised that they actually have simulated this effect in the in-game sounds, which was an impressive little detail and I loved it.

[-] tetris11@feddit.uk 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

No, it's just that democrats tend to drive faster than republicans because of their better cars and increased motivation to get out of red states

[-] Sharlot@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago

Best kind of science joke: funny and educational. Bonus points for making people think about Doppler before speeding.

[-] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 13 points 1 month ago

If that sticker is blue, only the laws of physics can judge me.

[-] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 month ago

Hey I used I have one of these. Slightly different design though. Was always my favourite sticker.

[-] FosterMolasses@leminal.space 9 points 1 month ago

This was good, had a hearty chuckle

[-] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago

Mine was sensible.

[-] Deceptichum@quokk.au 9 points 1 month ago
[-] 20cello@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago
[-] bloubz@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 month ago
[-] Devial@discuss.online 5 points 1 month ago

Make it green, and add the line "If this sticker is red, then I'm going too fast"

[-] Bluewing@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Light speed? No! Engage Ludicrous speed!

[-] far_university1990@reddthat.com 1 points 1 month ago

Put on f-777

[-] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 3 points 1 month ago

The color also depends on the ink's near-infrared reflectivity (since the sun and halogen headlamps emit infrared, that will get shifted into the red to green parts of the visible spectrum when red becomes blue)

this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2025
1241 points (99.6% liked)

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