Assignment 1 2020-21

Physics-I: PH1001
December 15, 2020

1. If a rod is to appear shrunk by half along its direction of motion, at what speed should
it travel?

2. A rod of length L0 moves with speed V along the horizontal direction. The rod makes
an angle θ00 with respect to the X 0 axis.

(a) Determine the length of the rod as measured by a stationary observer.

(b) Determine the angle θ the rod makes with the X axis.

3. A wire forming a circle lies fixed in the XY plane of the frame S 0 which moves uniformly
with respect to the S frame along the common X-axis. An observer fixed in the S
frame sees the wire as an ellipse with eccentricity e = 0.667. Find the relative velocity
between the frames.

4. Assuming that the rest radius of earth is 6400 km and its orbital speed about the sun
is 30 km/sec, how much does earths diameter appear to be shortened to an observer
on the sun, due to earth’s orbital motion?

5. (a) If the mean proper life-time of muons is 2.2 micro seconds, what average distance
would they travel in vacuum before decaying in the reference frame in which its
velocity is measured as 0.6c
(b) Compare this distance with the distance the muon sees while travelling.

6. A 100 MeV electron moves along the axis of an evacuated tube of length 4 m fixed to
the laboratory frame. What length of the tube would be measured by the observer
moving with the electron?

7. The mean life-time of muons at rest is 2.2 micro seconds. The observed mean lifetime
of muons as measured in the laboratory is 6.6 micro seconds. Find

(a) The effective mass of a muon at this speed when its rest mass is 207me ; me is
the mass of the electron.
(b) Its kinetic energy and momentum.

8. What is the speed of a proton whose kinetic energy equals its rest energy? Does the
result depend on the mass of proton?

9. An electron whose speed relative to an observer in a laboratory is 0.8c is also being

studied by an observer moving in the same direction as the electron at speed of 0.5c
relative to the laboratory. What is the kinetic energy (in MeV) of the electron to each
observer?

10. The Apollo-11 spacecraft that landed on the moon in 1969 traveled there at a speed
relative to the earth of 1.08 × 104 m/s. To an observer on the earth, how much longer
than his own day was a day on the spacecraft?

Enjoy the problem sheet

Assignment 1 2020-21

11. A spacecraft receding from the earth emits radio waves at a constant frequency of 109
Hz. If the receiver on earth can measure frequencies to the nearest hertz, at what
spacecraft speed can the difference between the relativistic and classical Doppler effects
be detected? For the classical effect, assume the earth is stationary.

12. Solve problem Nos. 23, 24, 26, 32, 35, 44, 46, and 50 of book Modern Physics by
Arthur Beiser.

13. An astronaut in a spaceship moving away from the earth with a constant speed of 0.9c
fires a rocket in the direction of travel with a speed of 0.5c relative to the spaceship.
What is the speed of the rocket as observed by an earthbound observer?

14. Two stars A and B move away from Earth in opposite directions with velocity 0.9c
and 0.8c respectively. Find the speed of star B with respect to star A.

15. In the laboratory reference frame, two particles move apart, both travelling at speed
0.5c. If we travelled with one of the particles, how fast would the other particle seem
to be receding?

16. How much energy would it take to accelerate an electron to the speed of light according
to the prerelativity physics? With this amount of energy what would be its actual
velocity v?

17. A spaceship travels with the speed of 0.712c relative to the earth A probe launched
from the spaceship travels at 0.823c with respect to the spaceship. What is the speed
of the probe with respect to the spaceship if it is fired (a) in the direction of travel of
the spaceship? (b) in the opposite direction?

18. If an electron has a momentum 85% larger than its classical momentum, how fast is
it moving?

19. A rod with proper length L moves past you at speed V . There is a time interval
between the front end coinciding with you and the back end coinciding with you.
What is this time interval in:

(a) Your frame? (Calculate this by working in your frame.)

(b) Your frame? (Work in the rod’s frame.)
(c) The rod’s frame? (Work in the rod’s frame.)

20. Two trains, A and B, each have proper length L0 and move in the same direction.
A’s speed is 4c/5, and B’s speed is 3c/5. A starts behind B.

(a) How long, as measured by person C on the ground, does it take for A to overtake
B? By this we mean the time between the front of A passing the back of B, and
the back of A passing the front of B.
(b) How long, as viewed by A and as viewed by B, does it take for A to overtake B?

21. A travels at speed 4c/5 toward B, who is at rest. C is between A and B. How fast
should C travel so that she sees both A and B approaching him/her at the same
speed?
Assignment 1 2020-21

22. As seen from Earth, two spaceships A and B are approaching along perpendicular
directions. If A is observed by a stationary Earth observer to have velocity uy =
-0.90c and B to have velocity ux = 0.90c, determine the speed of ship A as measured
by the pilot of ship B.

23. Prove that under Lorentz transformation the volume element cdtdxdydz is invariant,
i.e. prove that cdt0 dx0 dy 0 dz 0 = cdtdxdydz.

24. Defining the force on a material particle as the rate of change of momentum, show
that the acceleration of the particle is:

F~ F~ .V
~
~
~a = − V
m mc2
where m = m0 γ such that m0 is the rest mass and γ = q 1 .
2
1− V 2
c

25. Derive the relativistic acceleration transformation

2 3/2
 
1 − Vc2
a0x = ax
3
1 − ucx2V