Year 12 Physics - Space

Relativity Problems
1. A 180 meter long spaceship of mass 950 kg leaves earth and travels to star at .95c. Measured from Earth, it
takes the spaceship 105.26 years to get to the star. What is the dilated length of the ship at its relativistic
speed, what is its mass at its relativistic speed, and how much time does the clock on the ship experience?

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2. A spaceship parked at a street corner is 12 meters long. It then cruises around the block and moves at 0.8c
past someone standing on that street corner. The street corner observer measures the ship to have a length
of?

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3. An object of rest mass of 1 kg is moving at 99.5% of the speed of light. What is its measured mass?

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4. A spaceship travelling towards Mars has to cross a set distance of 3 109 Km. If the ship is travelling at 0.8c,
what distance does it appear to cover?
a. For the pilot of the space ship

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b. For an alien on mars observing the space ship

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5. A man sitting on a platform observes a train travelling at 0.5c. Using his watch he finds that it takes 5seconds
to enter the station and leave the station. How long was this for the train driver?

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Year 12 Physics - Space

6. Hal is undertaking a return trip to Procyon which is 11.4 light years away to drop off some Cargo. He plans on
travelling at a speed of 0.7c (where c is the speed of light.)
a. Discuss the difficulty of obtaining this speed with current technology

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b. Determine how much time Hals mother Beverly would have experienced while he was away (assume
that Hals space craft can achieve its maximum velocity very quickly and that he does no spend any
significant time on Procyon).

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c. Determine how much time Hal would have experienced whilst on his return trip.

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d. The time that Beverly experienced and the time that Hal experienced are different. However, if the
frame of reference is changed so that Beverly on the Earth is moving at 0.7c and Hal is stationary, it
could be considered that Beverly has experienced less time that Hal. Discuss why this reference
frame cannot be considered.

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