Friday, September 1, 2017

speed of light - Weird case for relative velocities and special relativity


This has bothered me for a while. I've been taught that the formula for determining the perceived velocity on an object from another moving object's reference frame under special relativity is:



$$v = \frac{w - u}{1 - wu/c^2}.$$


If two objects travel from earth at $c$ in exactly opposite directions, what is the perceived velocity of one from the other? The formula seems to give a divide by zero error.




-

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

classical mechanics - Moment of a force about a given axis (Torque) - Scalar or vectorial?

I am studying Statics and saw that: The moment of a force about a given axis (or Torque) is defined by the equation: $M_X = (\vec r \times \...

  • IQ test sample patterns
    I was solving the sample problems for my school's IQ society and there are some I don't get. Since all I get is a final score, I wan...
  • homework and exercises - Parallel or series connection?
    Are C1, C2 and C3 connected in parallel, or C2, C3 in parallel and C1 in series with C23? Btw it appeared as a question in the basic physics...
  • A real star riddle
    500 are at my end, 500 are at my start, but at my heart there are only 5. The first letter and the first number make me complete: Some consi...