Special Relativity Mid-Term Exam

Due: Friday, November 8, 5 PM. Hand in: Andrew Brainerds oce, Pupin 931 The exam comprises a number of problems, some on par with simple exercises that wont take you long to nish, some that are somewhat more involved. Do all problems. You can use any of the material from class but dont use anything else (you have all the material you need to solve all the problems). No collaboratingall work must be your own. This exam is as much for you as it is for me: doing these problems will help solidify your understanding of everything weve done in the course so far. 1. A long jump contestant wants to jump a distance L in the frame of reference of the stationary judges. She knows she will stay in the air for a time T, measured in her frame of reference. How fast does she need to be going when she jumps in order to do this? 2. Two rockets are located at a point between two planets, equidistant from each planet. The pilots decide to have a race each rocket will head towards one of the planets and whoever arrives rst wins. If the rockets travel at the same speed, who will win according to (i) a stationary observer and (ii) each pilot, and why? 3. A muon exists for 2.2 microseconds (=2200 ns) before decaying in its rest frame. If a muon travels 1100 before decaying, how fast was it traveling? 4. In one frame of reference, a rocket travels a 10 lt-yrs distance over 30 years. In another frame of reference, the rocket has only traveled 5 lt-yrs. What is the time elapsed during the trip in the second frame of reference? 5. In the movie Planet of the Apes, an astronaut leaves the Earth in 1972, ages by 18 months on a spaceship and returns to Earth in the year 3978. If the spacecraft he was on was traveling at a constant speed (ignoring for now the moment at which it turned around and headed back toward Earth, something we will return to in class shortly) how fast was it going? 6. A train passes by a platform, heading east. Both the platform and the train synchronize their clocks so that the clock at the center of the train and the clock at the center of the platform both read 0. According to observers on the platform, the clock at the front of the train is behind by 100 ns. If the Lorentz-contracted train is the same length as the platform and the rear of the train passes the eastern end of the platform at (platform) time t = 200 ns, how long is the train? 7. In some reference frame F, event A has coordinates (t = 2, x = 5) and event B has coordinates (t = 4, x = 4). Find a reference frame F in which

events A and B are located at the same position x, and describe how F is moving with respect to F. 8. A rocket leaves Earth at a velocity (3/5)c. Ten years after leaving, a ceremony is held on Earth to commemorate the rocket launch. According to clocks on the rocket, when do the rocket crew rst see this event (pre-processing), and when do they say it occurred post-processing? 9. Two planets are located 10 lightyears apart. One planet sends a light signal to to the other planet, which the other planet then reects back. At the same time as the rst planet sends the signal, a rocket leaves the rst planet headed for the second planet traveling at 0.5c. Make a spacetime diagram in the frame of the rocket showing (i) the signal leaving the rst planet (ii) the signal being reected at the second planet, and (iii) the rst planet receiving the reected signal. Label each event with coordinates for both the rockets frame of reference and the rst planets frame of reference. 10. Consider two broomsticks whose rest lengths are each 255, with the only dierence between them being that one is red and the other is blue. From your perspective on Earth, the blue broomstick is stationary, while the other red broomstick is rushing by in the positive x-direction with speed v = 8/17c. a) From your perspective, what is the length of the red broomstick, and from the perspective the observers riding the red broomstick, how long is your blue broomstick? b) Each broomstick is equipped with a light on each of its ends. Observers that are riding the red broomstick ash both of its lights simultaneously, from their perspective. How far apart do you say the ashes took place? c) You ash the lights on your blue broomstick simultaneously. According to those riding the red broomstick, how far apart did these ashes take place? d) As the team of observes riding along with the red broomstick pass by you, they grab your blue broomstick in a manner thats simultaneous from their perspective. When they subsequently compare the length of the red and blue broomsticks, will they say that the blue one is longer than the red, shorter than red, or equal to red? e) What speed must a third frame of reference have, from your perspective, in order that observers in this new frame claim that both broomsticks have the same length?

f) Show that your answer reduces to the Newtonian answer in the limit of small v . 11. Imagine now that a team of observers (we will call them Team Red) are riding the red broomstick, and zip by Earth at speed v . Assume that the origins of Team Earth and Team Red cross each other at t = t = 0 (that is, we are using the usual convention that (t = 0, x = 0) = (t = 0, x = 0)). Now imagine that you learn that one member of Team Redthe one at their originhas stolen a top secret le that he intends to sell inhabitants of the distant planet Zaxtar. So, upstanding citizen that you are, you jump on your new super broomstick, and chase after Team Red at speed V which is larger than v . You leave Earth at time t = t1 . To distinguish 1 the various values of that come into this story, lets write [w] = 1 w2 for any speed w (expressed in units where c = 1). a) At what time t2 according to Earth clocks do you catch up with the outlaw in Team Red? b) What is the time according to Team Red when you start chasing after them? c) According to Team Red, how far away are you from the outlaw when you start chasing them? d) According to Team Red, at what time do you catch up with the outlaw? e) According to Team Red, how long were you chasing them before you caught up to the outlaw? f) According to your watch (which read t1 when you left earth), what time is it when you catch up with the outlaw? (Dont concern yourself with the aects of acceleration. Instead, if you are bothered, imagine that the question is phrased more precisely as: Another observer moving past Earth with speed V , passes the origin of the Earths frame at time t1 on their own clock (and on Team Earths clock). What time will that observer say it is when they catch up with the outlaw who is at the origin of Team Red?) Please solve this two ways, one of which involves the Lorentz Transformation between the your new frame (that has speed V relative to Earth), and Team Red (which has speed v relative to Earth) and show all the relevant features in a space-time diagram. 12. Imagine you have two bicycle wheels whose hubs are both welded to a metal shaft, with rest length L0 . Assume the shaft is aligned along the 3

x-coordinate axis so that the wheels can spin about that axis. A red dot is painted at one location on the left wheel and a blue dot is painted at the corresponding location on the right wheel (so that the (y, z ) coordinates of the two dots in an (x, y, z ) coordinate system agree). As the shaft spins in the laboratory with angular velocity , the red and blue dots on the wheels are aligned with each other according to an observer at rest with respect to the contraption. Now imagine that your friend zips by the laboratory, headed in the positive x-direction, at a speed v . Will your friend agree that the red and blue dots are aligned? If not, what will your friend claim to be their angular oset?