Imagine you are riding on a yacht in the ocean and traveling at 20 mph. You then hit a golf ball at 100 mph from the deck of the

Question

2 months ago

6

Imagine you are riding on a yacht in the ocean and traveling at 20 mph. You then hit a golf ball at 100 mph from the deck of the

yacht. You see the ball move away from you at 100mph, while a person standing on a near by beach would observe your golf ball traveling at 120 mph (20 mph + 100 mph).
Now imagine you are aboard the Hermes spacecraft traveling at 0.1c (1/10 the speed of light) past Mars and shine a laser from the front of the ship. You would see the light traveling at c (the speed of light) away from your ship. According to Einstein’s special relativity, how fast will a person on Mars observe the light to be traveling?

A) 0.1c (1/10 the speed of light)

B) c (the speed of light)

C)1.1c (c+0.1c)

Physics

2 answers:

ValentinkaMS [3.4K] · Answer 1 · 2026-03-10T05:55:59+03:00

ValentinkaMS [3.4K]2 months ago

4 0

As per Einstein's theory of special relativity, the light speed in a vacuum remains constant regardless of the observer's speed. Therefore, the response should be A) 0.1c (one-tenth the speed of light)

Yuliya22 [3.3K] · Answer 2 · 2026-03-10T05:58:12+03:00

Answer:

B) c (the speed of light)

Explanation:

When considering the golf ball's speed alongside that of the yacht, classical mechanics permits this addition.

However, light's photons do not conform to classical mechanics.

Einstein's assertion states that light's speed is invariant across all reference frames, independent of observer movement. It represents the utmost velocity achievable by any object.

Thus, to those onboard the Hermes spacecraft, the laser appears to travel at c (the speed of light), and the same applies for observers on Mars.

Inside the Hermes, time dilation ensures that no entity exceeds the speed of light.

Let $T_{o}$ symbolize the interval measured on the Hermes,

Time outside Hermes

$T = \frac{T_{o}}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^{2} }{c^{2} } } } \\\\T = \frac{T_{o}}{\sqrt{1-\frac{(0.1c)^{2} }{c^{2} } } } \\\\T = 1.005T_{o}$

Hence, one second on Hermes equates to 1.005 seconds outside, showing that the laser seems to propagate at light speed for both observers inside and outside the spacecraft.