A friend in a spaceship travels past you at a high speed. He tells you that his ship is 20m long and that the identical ship you are sitting in is 19m long. According to your observations,

(a) how long is your ship??
(B) how long is his ship??
(c) what is the speed of your friend's ship??

Please help i really don't understand this.

a) 20 m

b) according to you: 19 m

Solve for the speed using the Lorentz contraction formula:

19 = 20/gamma = 20 sqrt[1-v^2/c^2]

1 answer

a=19 b=20
c=100000000000000000000000