Exam 35: Special Theory of Relativity

A heavy meterstick has mass m. When the meterstick is thrown like a spear past you at speed v, you measure its momentum to be 2mv. What do you measure its length to be?

As a blinking light source uniformly accelerates away from you, you observe the blinks

The place from which motion is observed and measured is called

Clocks on a spaceship moving at high speed relative to the Earth run more slowly when viewed from

Radioactive muons formed high in the atmosphere have an average lifetime of 2 millionths of a second and travel toward Earth at nearly the speed of light. Because of their altitude most of them should have decayed by the time they reach the Earth's surface, according to pre-relativity physics. They don't because they

The stretching out of time due to motion is called time

When an electron and a positron meet and annihilate, the mass-energy of the particles is carried away by

Compared to clocks in a stationary reference frame, clocks in a moving reference frame run

What is special about the ratio distance traveled per unit of time?

When you run along the hall from one classroom to another you're moving through

A spaceship whizzes past a planet at high speed. An observer on the planet sees a contracted spaceship, while an observer on the spaceship sees

According to relativity theory, if a space trip finds a son or daughter biologically older than their parents, then the space trip is taken by the

When a high-velocity beam of electrons is bent by a magnetic field, relativistic effects

A light source blinks with a certain frequency in its own frame of reference, and the speed of light in that frame is c. When the light source approaches you, you observe an increase in

How fast would a light beam appear to Einstein if he were traveling in the same direction at 90% of the speed of light?

Event A occurs before event B in a certain frame of reference. In another frame of reference, event A could occur

A postulate of special relativity is that the speed of light

As a light source blinking at a steady rate approaches you at an increasing speed (accelerating toward you), the rate at which the blinks encounter you

Two lightning bolts are seen to strike two distant locations at the same time. Seen from a different location, the two lightning bolts

Using the relativistic velocity-addition formula for adding everyday velocities produces