Practice IB Physics Topic A.5 Galilean and Special Relativity with authentic exam-style questions for both SL and HL students. This question bank focuses on the exact syllabus content for A.5 Galilean and Special Relativity and mirrors Paper 1A, 1B, 2 style where relevant.
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A particle decays after traveling in Earth's frame while moving at . What is the particle's lifetime in its own rest frame?
In Earth's inertial frame, two events are simultaneous and are separated by a distance of . What is the magnitude of the time difference between the events in a frame moving at in the direction from the first event to the second?
In frame , two events occur at the same place but are separated by . What is the spatial separation between the events in a frame moving at relative to ?
An unstable particle at rest has a proper lifetime of . How fast must it travel so that only 1% of the particles in a beam survive after traveling ?
A fixed monitoring station (frame ) detects two flashes produced by separate signal lamps. Event 1 takes place at the origin (), while Event 2 takes place at and . A survey craft (frame ) moves in the positive -direction with a constant speed of relative to the monitoring station.
Calculate the Lorentz factor, , for the survey craft.
Determine the time separation between Event 1 and Event 2 as recorded by an observer in the survey craft.
Calculate the spatial separation between Event 1 and Event 2 for the observer in the survey craft.
Calculate the spacetime interval in both frames and explain what this result shows physically.