Moving lights and mirrors.
A particle of light was given off with the speed, 300,000,000 m/s from a certain mirror. As it hits the other mirror, it will bounce off again to reach the first mirror and vice-versa. The process repeats infinitely. We can assume that the two mirrors are face to face and the particle of light does not lose any speed in each bounce/reflection. Given that the two mirrors are moving apart with the speed of 100m/s and their initial distance within each other is 50m, what is the distance traveled by the particle of light after 10s?
The answer is 3E+9.
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1 solution
Provided that the speed is constant, the particle of light will travel a certain distance in a given time regardless of the motion and position of the mirrors. This true because the direction or displacement of the object does not matter. Since the speed is 3x10^(8) m/s and the time is 10s, using the equation, distance = velocity x time, then the answer should be 3x10^(9) m.