<QUOTE>1. if we move at this speed time is slow for us</QUOTE>
Actually, no. We'll see things happen at the same rate. It's how you measure things on different frames that varies. Other people's watches are slower than your own's when they're moving relative to you, but they'll also see YOUR watch slower than their's. There's a reason why it's called "relativity theory", you know? (But if you blurt out "everything is relative" I'll punch you in the nose, figuratively. I don't know where people got that from, but it's plain WRONG!)
<QUOTE>2. people say that space also contracts in the direction</QUOTE>
Those people are wrong and should have paid more attention at school. It's other people which measure shorter distances between two points than you measure. And you also measure their yardstick shorter as well as they measure yours shorter.
<QUOTE>if we light a torch from our space craft(we are moving at 99%C) then we will see it fasten</QUOTE>
No. You'll still measure light travelling with speed c. Remember when I told you NEVER to say "everything is relative"? Well, here's an example of where that sillyness fails. If you ever said it before, I hope you never say "everything is relative" again.
If you were in a train travelling at 100m/h and there was a bystander watching, relative to the bystander you would be moving at 100m/h. However relative to the train you wouldn't be moving. This is why we say motion MUST be described relative to something.
If you threw a ball while on the train at 5m/h, to the bystander the ball would be measured at 105m/h. i.e the speed of the train + the speed of the ball, However relative to you, the ball would be moving at 5m/h.
If you were on this train moving at 100m/h, and the headlights were turned on, what speed do you think the bystander would measure the photons at? if you are using the velocity adding technique this would be wrong, it was demonstrated clearly that when dealing with things to do with light speed, the velocity of light is ALWAYS the same. So you in the train would measure the same speed of light as the bystander on the train tracks...surely this doesn't make sense. But it does.
Likewise if a vessel was moving at 99% the speed of light, and it shot a projectile, you would think due to the velocity adding technique that as the projectile was already travelling at 99% the speed of light, then when you add the velocity of the projectile itself it would be moving faster than light. Except this doesn't happen, the projectile would not move faster than the speed of light, the velocity adding method doesn't apply when dealing with things near light speed.
Light will always be faster than the projectile, and the reason this would be achieved is through time dilation and length contraction. The projectile and the vessel would be shortened in the direction of movement. And relative to a stationary observer time on the vessel would have slowed down tremendously. As we all know speed = Distance/Time. With length contraction + the effects of time dilation, no matter how fast the vessel or the projectile is travelling the speed would always be worked out to be smaller than the speed of light. Why? because like I explained, time dilation makes it so that a body moving at or close to the speed of light time will slow down, for the inhabitants of the vessel it would seem that NOTHING has changed and that time was progressing as normal, but to an observer it would be clear that the time on the vessel would be moving much slower relative to a stationary clock. The length contraction of the vessel and the projectile would mean they would cover a smaller distance in length than they would normally, combined with time running slower, Speed=Dist/Time would work out to be smaller than the speed of light.
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