Exam 29: Relativity

A spaceship, traveling at 0.100c away from a stationary enemy station, shoots a projectile towards the station, with a speed of 0.560c relative to the spaceship. What is the speed of the projectile relative to the station?

A spaceship traveling at constant speed away from the Sun crosses the orbit of Earth and later crosses the orbit of Mars. What is the distance between these two events in the spaceship frame of reference? The radius of Earth's orbit is 150 × 10⁹ m and that of Mars is 228 × 10⁹ m.

A satellite with a rest mass of 200 kg and a speed of 0.800c and a second satellite with a rest mass of 100 kg and a speed of 0.600c are traveling toward each other in deep space. The satellites collide and stick together. What is the rest mass of the combined object after the collision?

A 30-year-old astronaut goes off on a long term mission in a spacecraft that travels at speeds close to that of light. The mission lasts exactly 20 years as measured on Earth. Biologically speaking, the astronaut's age would be

The kinetic energy of a particle is 3 times its rest energy. What is the speed of the particle?

Relativistic time dilation does apply to biological processes.

An electron has a relativistic momentum of 1.1 × 10^-21 kg-m/s. What fraction of its total energy is its kinetic energy?

When a spring is compressed, its mass increases.

The special theory of relativity sets a limit on speed. Does it set a limit on momentum?

According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, a ray of light bends in a gravitational field.

A spaceship enters the solar system moving toward the Sun at a constant speed relative to the Sun. By its own clock, the time elapsed between the time it crosses the orbit of Jupiter and the time it crosses the orbit of Mars is 50.0 minutes. As measured in the coordinate system of the Sun, how long did it take for the spaceship to travel that distance? The radius of the orbit of Jupiter is 778 × 10⁹ m, and that of the orbit of Mars is 228 × 10⁹ m.

You are a passenger on a spaceship. As the speed of the spaceship increases, you would observe

How fast would a rocket ship have to move to contract to half of its proper length (as observed by a stationary object)?

A starship is built to plans that state it is to be constructed 100. meters long. It is launched and as it coasts by the Earth, it is seen to be shortened to 5.48 meters long. (a) How fast is it moving? (b) The ship's crew measure the length of the ship to be how long?

FIGURE 29-1 -An object moves in a direction parallel to its length with a velocity that approaches the velocity of light. The width of this object, as measured by a stationary observer,

A satellite, initially at rest in deep space, separates into two pieces, which move away from each other. One piece has a rest mass of 190 kg and moves away with a speed 0.500c, and the second piece has a rest mass of 250 kg and moves in the opposite direction. What is the speed of the second piece?

A moving object's mass is twice its rest mass. Its length (in the direction of travel) must therefore be

A black hole is a star whose gravitational field is so strong that light cannot escape from it.

As the velocity of an inertial frame of reference increases with respect to a stationary observer, Einstein's theory of special relativity predicts that the length of an object, measured in the dimension parallel to the motion of the reference frame, will

Two spaceships, each 100 m long in its own rest frame, approach Earth from opposite directions, each with a speed 0.50c relative to Earth. As measured by a passenger in one of the spaceships, how long is the other spaceship?