Online Course Support | Understanding Einstein: The Special Theory of Relativity

Alice is observing the arrivals and departures at a spaceport. She observes one flight land at pad D7, and then notes another flight take off from pad G23 seventeen seconds later. Alice knows that the distance between pad D7 and pad G23 is 1240 meters in her frame of reference. Meanwhile, Bob flies by the spaceport at a high speed V and observes the same landing and takeoff, though he records a different time and distance between the two events, based on his frame of reference. If both Alice and Bob plug in their values for the elapsed time and distance between the landing and takeoff into the formulas below (where c is the speed of light, t is the elapsed time, and x is the distance), which one will give the same answer for both?

 

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