Charged pion. GONE!

If a charged pion that decays in 10 8 { 10 }^{ -8 } seconds in its own rest frame is to travel 30 m 30m in the laboratory before decaying, what must the pion's speed be at least? SJPO 2010, Q42

Use Special Relativity to solve this.
Type your answer in m s 1 m{ s }^{ -1 } .
Round your answer to 3 significant figures. Take the speed of light to be 299792458 m s 1 299792458m{ s }^{ -1 }

This question is part of my set SJPO Practice Questions


The answer is 298000000.

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2 solutions

Julian Poon
Jun 8, 2014

Since the time taken for the pion to decay is measured in the frame of the pion, it would be the dilated time. Therefore:

Δ t p = 10 8 s \Delta tp={ 10 }^{ -8 }s

Expressing the 30m measured in the laboratory in terms of the speed v of the pion and the dilated time, and also in terms of the speed v of the pion and the proper time, it comes down to:

30 Δ t p = v 1 v 2 c 2 \frac { 30 }{ \Delta tp } =\frac { v }{ \sqrt { 1-\frac { { v }^{ 2 } }{ { c }^{ 2 } } } }

Solving the equation, you get:

v = [ 30 Δ t p ] 2 [ 1 + [ 30 Δ t p ] 2 [ 1 c 2 ] ] = 2.98 10 8 ( 3 s . f ) v=\sqrt { \frac { { \left[ \frac { 30 }{ \Delta tp } \right] }^{ 2 } }{ \left[ 1+{ \left[ \frac { 30 }{ \Delta tp } \right] }^{ 2 }\left[ \frac { 1 }{ { c }^{ 2 } } \right] \right] } } =2.98*{ 10 }^{ 8 }\quad (3s.f)

Congratulations, you just earned 1 mark upon 50 in SJPO first round!

"Congratulations, you just earned 1 mark upon 50 in SJPO first round!" Why do you love to suan people so much?

Lee Isaac - 5 years, 11 months ago

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but...but... darts true...

Julian Poon - 5 years, 9 months ago

The question does not state to write the answer in scientific notation. The answer would be 298306687.628 m/s...

Thomas Bisig - 3 years, 5 months ago

Yeah I wrote a precise answer and it said I was wrong.

Tristan Goodman - 2 years, 2 months ago

L = 30 t = t 0 1 v 2 c 2 = 1 0 8 1 v 2 c 2 Combining the two, L t = v v = 30 1 v 2 c 2 1 0 18 Solving, v 298000000 m / s L=30\\t^{\prime}=\frac{t_0}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}=\frac{10^{-8}}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}\\\text{Combining the two, }\\\frac{L}{t^{\prime}}=v\\v=\frac{30\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}{10^{-18}}\\\text{Solving,}\\v\approx298000000m/s

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