Question

ane sets up two mirrors in her reference frame where mirror A is located on the x-axis 100 m from the origin and mirror B is located on the y-axis 100 m from the origin. She then causes a light source, which is located at the origin and emits light uniformly in all directions, to flash once at t=0.

(a) As measured in Jane's inertial frame, what is the time at which the light flash reaches mirror A?

(b) As measured in Jane's inertial frame, what is the time at which the light flash reaches mirror B?

Consider Allen, who travels in a rocket ship moving in the +x direction at speed 0.685c as observed by Jane. Use the usual convention that Allen's and Jane's respective coordinate axes are parallel and that their clocks read zero at the instant their coordinate system origins coincide.

(c) As measured in Allen's inertial frame, what is the time at which the light flash reaches mirror A?

(d) As measured in Allen's inertial frame, what is the time at which the light flash reaches mirror B?

(e) As measured in Allen's inertial frame, what is the x coordinate of mirror A at the instant that the light flash is incident upon it?

(f) Allen measures the speed of light using the measurement results obtained in Parts (c) and (e). What is the result in terms of c?

Answer 1