Special Relativity Quiz
Name
1) True or False? There would be significant time dilation if you were travelling at the speed of SOUND.
2) True or False? The Theory of Special Relativity ONLY works when objects are moving at very high speeds.
3) True or False? According to a stationary observer, Time goes by faster for a traveler that is travelling at very high
speeds?
4) True or False? One of the confirmations of The Theory of Special Relativity was when scientists took an atomic
clock aboard a jet plane, and noticed that the clocks time was running slightly faster than the one on Earth?
5) True or False? A person that is moving at a very high speed toward an approaching beam of light will perceive the
speed of that light beam to be moving faster than normal.
6) True or False? A person moving in Car A at 50 mph (relative to a person standing on the side of the road) is
moving toward another car B that is travelling at 60 mph (relative to a person standing on the side of the road) in the
opposite direction. Car A will perceive car B to be moving faster than 60 mph.
7) True or False? Space – time is part of the universe, not the other way around.
8) When light waves emitted from an object are stretched out (lengthened) what color will that object appear? Red
9) True or false? The slower you move through space, the faster you move through time.
10) Explain the muon experiment.
Muon is a subatomic particle that scientists accelerated to speeds close to the speed of light, and when doing so they
saw that it decayed slower…. Thus verifying special relativity/time dilation
11) Person on the side of the road sees a car drive by at 100 mph in front of him with his headlights on. How fast
does the person on the side of the road see the light from the headlights to be travelling? C – the speed of light
12) Explain what scenario you could set up so that you could wind up being older than your father.
Send your father in a spaceship that is moving at relativistic (close to the speed of light) speeds
13) True or False. The universe exists in time.
14) State the first postulate of special relativity.
The laws of physics are the same in any inertial reference frame
15) State the second postulate of special relativity.
Speed of light is always constant
16) If the 2 postulates of S.R. were not true what would be true of how we would see a distant orbiting star?
We would see it at two different positions at the same time
17) What a stationary observer sees as time dilation, a moving observer experiences as _________ _________.
Length contraction
18) Explain how a hypothetical ‘light clock’ illustrates why time dilation must occur when moving at fast speeds.
See one of the videos. Light clock moving very fast has to travel a longer path to complete its “tic-toc” but its
speed cannot change therefore time itself is slowing down.
19) If lightning and thunder occur at the same time, why do we hear thunder at the exact same time we see
lightning? Speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound
20) True or False. If you are in a spaceship travelling at .99c, you feel your own time slow way down.
21) A car is moving east at 50 mph, a baseball is then thrown from the moving car at also east at 30 mph (relative to
the car). What is the speed of the baseball relative to a stationary observer? 80 mph
22) Identify 3 experiments that proved the existence of time dilation. Muons, Clocks on airplanes, supernovas
23) What is a “light-year” a measure of? Distance
24) True or False. No person could possibly travel to a star that is 1000 light years away within their own lifetime.
Explain your answer
Their time slows down according to ppl on Earth, so they can make it in their own lifetime
just not in the lifetime of ppl left on Earth
25) True or False. Light only travels through space, not through time.
26) A stationary observer sees two bolts of lightning hit a train
simultaneously, one strike at the front (A) of the train, one at the rear (B)
(as seen in the picture). If the train is travelling at relativistic speeds what
does an observer on the train perceive to happen in regards to the two
lightning bolts. (the arrow represents the direction of motion of the train)
That lightning bolt A actually happened before lightning bolt B
27) Does light experience time?
NO
28) Why is relativity important to the GPS satellites that are orbiting around the Earth?
Need to be accurately calibrated, they are moving fast and are far from Earth so their time runs differently than
Earth’s time
29) A spaceship is travelling away from Earth at relativistic speed. How do the stationary observers on Earth see the
clock running on the spaceship?
Slow
30 ) If the observers on the spaceship look back at the Earth, how do they see the Earth’s clock running? A
Slow
31) What are 3 ways that light is different from everything else in the universe?
Faster, speed is always constant, no mass
32) If you are riding in a spaceship travelling at .7c (70% the speed of light) and you throw a baseball out in front of
the ship at 40 m/s (relative to you), how fast would a stationary observer view that baseball travelling?
.7c + 40 m/s
33) If you are riding in a spaceship travelling at .7c (70% the speed of light) and you shine a headlight out in front of
you, how fast would a stationary observer perceive that beam of light to be travelling?
C
34) How fast is the speed of light?
300,000,000 m/s
35) Is it possible to travel to a star that is 1000 light years away and come back to Earth in the lifespan of the
traveler? (meaning will they make it there during their own lifetime or will it take too long?) Explain your
answer.
See #24
36) Is it possible to travel to a star that is 1000 light years away in the lifespan of the people on Earth? (meaning will
the traveler make it back to Earth within their lifetime or will it take too long?) Explain your answer.
See #24
37) The scientific view of the universe before Einstein came along was that space & time were fixed and could not be
altered, how did Einstein change this?
Space and time are flexible/malleable, different observers can disagree on the amount of time going by or
spatial features.