Relativity: Projectile Motion at an Angle on Spaceship

mochi_melon
Messages
5
Reaction score
0

Homework Statement


On a spaceship moving 5/6C, an astronaut fires a light pulse from a gun. The barrel of the gun makes an angle of 60 degrees from the X direction relative to the spaceship. What angle does the gun make in the rest frame of an observer on Earth and what angle does the light pulse move for the same Earth observer?

Homework Equations


u^{'}_{x}=C*cos\theta
V^{'}_{x}=5/6C
u_{x}=\stackrel{u^{'}_{x}+V^{'}_{x}}{1+\stackrel{u^{'}_{x}V^{'}_{x}}{c^{2}}}

For some reason the formatting didn't work out - the last equation is Einstein's Relative Addition formula.

The Attempt at a Solution


I found a value of 2.8216x10^{8} for the relative velocity in the x direction of the light pulse to the Earth observer, but I do not know what the next step would be. I suspect that the angle of the gun itself does not change, but I'm not sure how to prove or disprove this. Thanks!
 
Last edited:
Physics news on Phys.org
Ok, upon looking in my notes once more I found how to find the velocity of the light pulse as measured by the Earth observer and thus its components/angle, but I am still at a total loss to find at what angle the gun itself is in the stationary reference frame. Since that was the part A I suspect it is something very simple I am overlooking :(
 
With the gun as the hypotenuse, draw a right-triangle with legs along the x- and y-axes.
What is the corresponding triangle in the Earth's frame?
 
I wound up following the formulas (copied from another website since I'm having trouble having the division lines come up properly for these formulas)

wx = (ux + vx) / (1 + ux vx / c2) = (48/51)c
wy = uy / [(1 + ux vx / c2) gamma(vx)] = .337915c
wz = uz / [(1 + ux vx / c2) gamma(vx)] = 0

Where w is the velocity seen on Earth, u is the pulse velocity and v is the spaceship. I got an angle that is way less than the original (19.75^{o}) Does that make sense?


As for the angle of the gun itself, I used these equations:
L_{x}=\frac{l_{ox}}{\gamma(v_{x})}=l_{o}cos60\sqrt{11/36}
L_{y}=\frac{l_{oy}}{\gamma(v_{y})}=l_{o}sin60

Resulting in an angle of 72.3^{o}. Again, is this a logical answer or did I do something wrong?
 
Thread 'Need help understanding this figure on energy levels'
This figure is from "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics" by Griffiths (3rd edition). It is available to download. It is from page 142. I am hoping the usual people on this site will give me a hand understanding what is going on in the figure. After the equation (4.50) it says "It is customary to introduce the principal quantum number, ##n##, which simply orders the allowed energies, starting with 1 for the ground state. (see the figure)" I still don't understand the figure :( Here is...
Thread 'Understanding how to "tack on" the time wiggle factor'
The last problem I posted on QM made it into advanced homework help, that is why I am putting it here. I am sorry for any hassle imposed on the moderators by myself. Part (a) is quite easy. We get $$\sigma_1 = 2\lambda, \mathbf{v}_1 = \begin{pmatrix} 0 \\ 0 \\ 1 \end{pmatrix} \sigma_2 = \lambda, \mathbf{v}_2 = \begin{pmatrix} 1/\sqrt{2} \\ 1/\sqrt{2} \\ 0 \end{pmatrix} \sigma_3 = -\lambda, \mathbf{v}_3 = \begin{pmatrix} 1/\sqrt{2} \\ -1/\sqrt{2} \\ 0 \end{pmatrix} $$ There are two ways...
Back
Top