Physics 200 Problem Set 4
Problem 1
Suppose that scientists discover a new kind of engine that can directly convert the mass energy from butter
into the kinetic energy of a vehicle. If one of these engines were placed on the space shuttle, how much
butter (in grams) would it take to bring the shuttle to the velocity required to escape the gravitational pull
of the Earth (ignore momentum conservation here)?
Problem 2
One rainy afternoon down at Dave’s New Particle World, Dave collides an electron and a positron and creates
a new unstable particle with a mass of 500 M eV /c2 . The particle is initially at rest and decays into two
other particles, each with mass 200M eV /c2 . At what speed (relative to c) do the lighter particles travel
away?
Note: an electron volt is the amount of energy it takes to move an electron through a potential difference of
1 Volt = 1 Joule/Coulomb. This means 1eV = 1.6 × 10−19 J. The electron volt is the standard unit used to
describe energies in atomic and particle physics. Masses of subatomic particles are also described by giving
their mass energy in electron volts (or M eV = 106 eV ). For example, the mass energy of an electron is
me c2 = 0.511M eV .
Problem 3
A plain donut of mass M is traveling in the +x̂ direction at speed 35 c while a chocolate donut of mass M is
traveling in the −x̂ direction with speed 54 c. If the two donuts collide inelastically and stick together, what
is the mass and velocity of the resulting dessert?
For this problem, you may find it useful to use the result that
E 2 − p2 c2 = m2 c4
This is easy to check based on the formulae for E and p~. This gives the energy of an object in terms of its
mass and momentum, or alternatively, its mass in terms of energy and momentum.
Problem 4
A 2kg ball traveling at 0.6c collides with a 3kg ball that is initially at rest and bounces directly backwards.
The collision is elastic, so that the masses are not changed in the collision. In this question, we would like
to determine the final velocity of each ball. We could analyze everything in the original frame of reference
using energy and momentum conservation, but the simplest way to do the problem is to go to a frame where
momentum is zero, analyze the collision, and then transform back:
a) Determine the total momentum and total energy in the original frame of reference.
b) Using the Lorentz transformation for momentum, determine the velocity of a reference frame S 0 in which
the total momentum p0T OT is zero.
c) Calculate the velocities of the two objects in this frame before the collision.
d) Determine the velocities of the two objects in this frame after the collision
hint: for this part, no calculation is required; you should be able to guess what happens after the collision
using the fact that it is an elastic collision and that the total momentum is zero before and after. If it’s not
obvious, draw a picture of the momentum vectors for the two object before the collision.
e) Determine the velocities of the two objects in the original frame after the collision.
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Problem 5
a) Hubble’s Law in astronomy states that due to the expansion of the universe, objects at a distance D from
our galaxy appear on average to be moving away from us at a velocity
v = H0 D
where H0 = c/(1.38 × 1010 lyr) is Hubble’s constant. Astronomers spot a distant cluster of galaxies of a type
that emits light with a peak wavelength of 500nm. For these galaxies, the peak wavelength that they observe
is actually 1000nm. How far away is this cluster of galaxies (assuming they are moving directly away from
us)?
b) By approximately how much does the peak wavelength of light we observe from the Sun differ from the
actual peak wavelength of the emitted sunlight due to the relative motion of the Sun and the Earth?
