Really relative ?
Consider two situations (a)- A car is moving at the speed of 92.56 m/s and a motorcycle is just behind it at the speed of 91.36m/s.A stationary observer calculates the speed of the car but relative to the motorcycle correctly to get x as the answer. (b)A ray of light is moving in vacuum at the speed of 300000000m/s and a spaceship is moving just behind it at the speed of 50000000m/s.A stationary observer calculates the speed of light relative to the observer correctly to get y as the answer. What is the value of (y/x)? (note- the unit of x and y is m/s).
The answer is 250000000.
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1 solution
Most of you would get x=1.2 but still get the answer wrong.This is because you may have calculated y =250000000 which is wrong ! This is because according to Einstein`s theory of relativity, the speed of light remains constant irrespective of the observer or reference point, so y= speed of light= 300000000.now, y/x=250000000.Interesting ?