Special relativity, delay of a clock in a plane

AI Thread Summary
A plane moving at 600 m/s experiences a clock delay of 2 microseconds according to ground clocks. Using Lorentz transformations, the calculation shows that the time difference between the two clocks is approximately 1,000,000 seconds, equating to about 11 days, 13 hours, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds. This result raises concerns about its feasibility given the context. Participants emphasize the importance of precision in calculations, particularly regarding the speed of light. The final consensus suggests that while the answer is large, it is consistent with relativistic effects.
fluidistic
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Homework Statement


A plane is moving at 600m/s with respect to the ground. According to clocks on the ground, how much time would it take so that the plane's clock is delayed by 2 microseconds?

Homework Equations


Lorentz transformations.

The Attempt at a Solution


Let O be a reference frame on the ground and O' be a reference frame on the plane.
v=600m/s. If I'm not wrong, they ask me t_B-t_A such that (t_B-t_A)-(t_A'-t_B')=2 \times 10 ^{-6}s. (*)
What I've done so far is t_B'-t_A'=\gamma \left [ t_B-t_A +\frac{v}{c^2}(x_A-x_B) \right ], replacing x_A-x_B by v(t_A-t_B), then solving for t_B-t_A in (*), I reach that it's worth exactly 1000000s. Or 11 days, 13 hours, 46 minutes and 40 s. It seems too big for me. Do you get a different answer?
 
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Your final answer is about the same as mine.
 
collinsmark said:
Your final answer is about the same as mine.
Oh ok. Thanks a lot for the confirmation.
 
fluidistic said:
Oh ok. Thanks a lot for the confirmation.
Be careful of your precision though. The speed of light isn't exactly 3.000000 x 108 m/s. So I don't think you should be calculating the time down to the very second with that. But something around 1.0 x 106 seconds is the answer that I got, is what I meant.
 
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