ELECTROMAGNETIC THEORY 2019-20

TUTORIAL 2

Simultaneity, Time Dilation & Length Contraction etc.

1. A meter stick at rest is placed at an angle of 45 with the x-axis in its rest frame. The
stick moves with a velocity ~v = 12 cî. Find the length of the stick as observed from the
lab frame?

2. A rocket of length l0 = 100 meters, with a radio receiver in its nose, is travelling at
a speed of v = 0.6c relative to the earth. A stationary (relative to the earth) space
station emits a radio pulse just as the end of the rocket passes by it.
a) How far is the nose of the rocket from the space station when the receiver receives
the radio pulse?
b) According to the clocks in the space station, what is the time elapsed between its
emission of the radio pulse to its reception in the nose of the rocket?
c) What is this time interval according to the astronauts in the rocket?

Figure 1: Rocket and radio signal

3. A rocket leaves earth with a speed of 35 c. When the rocket’s clock says one hour has
elapsed, it sends a radio signal to the earth.

(a) According to the clocks on earth, when was the signal sent?

(b) According to the clocks on earth, how long after the rocket left was the signal
received on earth?

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 (c) According to the clocks on the rocket, how long after the rocket left was the signal
received on earth?

4. A person at the origin of an inertial reference frame S observes a rod of proper length
l0 moving towards him at a speed v. He notes that the rod takes a time T to pass him.

(a) As measured in S 0 , the rest frame of the rod, how long will it take for the observer
situated at the origin of S take to pass along the length of the rod?

(b) Assuming that when the front end of the rod passes the observer, the clocks in
S and in the rest frame S 0 of the rod are both set to read zero, fill in the miss-
ing information in the following space-time coordinates (x, t) and (x0 , t0 ) of the two
specified events:
(i) Event E1 , the front end of the rod passing the observer at the origin of S, occurs
at (0, ?) in S and (0, 0) in S 0 .
(ii) Event E2 , the tail end of the rod passing the observer at the origin of S, occurs
at (0, ?) in S and (l0 , ?) in S 0 .

(c) Using the Lorentz transformation, establish a relation between the coordinates
of event E2 and hence prove that the velocity of the rod is given by
l0 /T
v=r  2
1 + l0 c/T