Week+Two

Discussion Question 1 Understanding Time A second is a second is a second, for you or me or anyone else. But in fact, time doesn't behave that way at all. Based on this week's readings, what are some of the challenges of understanding the concept of relative time?

Discussion Question 2 Frames of Reference Spend time exploring the frames of reference interactive. How does your relative position and movement, as well as that of the basketball player, affect your perception of motion? What is the importance of the light switch? In the Results section of the interactive, we present nine different combinations that you worked through. Do you think we covered all the combinations? Based upon your exploration of the interactive, as well as this week's readings, how would you describe the concept of motion? Please make sure you have downloaded the latest version of Shockwave and are using the most up-to-date browser on your computer. []

Assignment 1 What a Long, Short Trip The year is 2102 and high-speed travel has taken on a whole new meaning. Given your busy day-to-day life, you have been waxing nostalgic about "Where has the time gone? and your "lost youth." You plan to take a vacation from your job and "get away from it all" in a spacecraft that travels at speeds close to the speed of light. Visit the Time Dilation Equation to discover what affect your travel speed and duration of trip will have on your sense of the passage of time. Then submit your conclusions to both scenarios below in the Project section of this site. If you left Earth on January 1, 2103, on a space ship traveling at 98 percent the speed of light, and returned one earth year later, how much time will have passed for you onboard the spaceship?Now consider sending an older friend or relative on a spacecraft that travels 99 percent the speed of light. What is the duration of the trip so that upon his or her return to Earth the two of you are the same age? In your post include your original ages and how old both of you are at the end of the trip

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