if a bug is flying around your car while you’re driving 60mph on the highway, is the bug flying at 60mph?
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Speed is relative to the observer. To someone standing beside the highway, the car and everything in it are at 60mph. To someone in the car, the fly is flying at its normal speed.
If you’re doing 60 and someone is approaching you at 60, the relative speed to each other is 120mph.
No. Same as you aren’t running at 60 miles an hour if you run on a bus on a highway.
The air inside is all staying still relative to the vehicle.
Yes, and no.
The bug is flying at a groundspeed of 60, since the car and everything in it is travelling at 60.
However the bugs’ airspeed is much lower, because (as long as your windows are closed) the air in the car is also moving at 60, the bug is flying at a regular speed through the air.
Basically the bug doesn’t have to fly at 60 to keep up, because the air it’s flying in is already going 60.
Exactly the same way you’re sitting still and not moving at all, but are going 60 with the car
The earth is spinning at 1000 miles per hour. If you’re walking around are you walking around at 1000 miles an hour?
The car is traveling at 60mph, the bug isn’t flying at that speed, but it is traveling at that speed thanks to you giving it a ride.
There is no universal objective speed. Speed is relative to the observer. If you’re in the car with the bug, its speed is not 60mph. Its just moving at whatever normal bug speed relative to you.
If someone was observing the entire moving car, then yes the bug would look like its moving at 60mph, though it would be facetious to say its *flying* at 60mph since the car is providing the motion.
In an commercial flight, I would hope that all the passengers are also flying at the same speed as the airplane or there’s something majorly wrong.
Speed is always relative. So the bug is flying at 60mph relative to the road, but not relative to the car. You could also ask if the car is driving at 19 miles per second, as that’s how fast the earth is orbiting the sun. You can expound from there because the sun isn’t stationary in space.
We generally just express speeds in the most useful context for the circumstance.
It depends. Speed is relative. To someone standing on the side of the road yes. To you in the car no.
Do you mean the bug is flying inside the car or outside close to the car?
You always have to think “compared to what?”.
The car, you, the fly… are moving all together at 60mph compared to the ground. But within the car you are still and the fly is turning around you so your speed compared to the car is zero, the bug speed is maybe 2-3mph if it’s very active.
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