Could anybody help with this assignment question?

Question

if a package is dispatched by a spaceship towards a space station and travels with a constant speed of 0.9c as measured by a person on the space station, what distance does it travel in the frame of reference of the space station, giving the answer in units of light days, the distance by light in one day. light = c = 3.0*10^8 ms^-1

Answer 1

23

Answer 2

I'll try since no one else has...

there are two ways of doing this, a long way and a short. The long one involves a lot of maths... the short does not.

The speed of the package is 0.9c where C is the speed of light.

The time spent travelling is ONE day.

Something travelling at the speed of light will in one year travel a light year, in a day travel a light day in a second travel a light second; but we use the usual reference of a light year.

Therefore, something traveling at 90% the speed of light would travel 90% of a light year in a year, 90% of a light day in a day...

In fact then if a package travelling at 0.9c would travel.... in a light day.... hellsfire, I can't give you the answer but use the concept above to work it out...

the long was is to work out the distance covered in a day at the speed of light, work out how far the package travelled in metres... realise you cannot convert the refernce of a m to a day unless you divide the whole distance in a day at the speed of light by the distance at 0.9c and then when the speed of light cancels out along with the seconds you'll end up with 0.9 again... if they want the working out then dont actually do the maths, just present it and the show the cancelling out.

Hope this helps, it is a thought experiment as opposed to a math question.

JMB944

Answer 3

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