Question

Two spaceships leave Earth in opposite directions, each with a speed of 0.60c with respect to Earth. (a) What is the SPEED of spaceship 1 relative to spaceship 2?

Answer 1

Answer:

The relative speed of 1 relative to 2 is 0.88c

Explanation:

In relativistic mechanics the relative speed between 2 objects moving in different direction is given by

$v_{ab}=\frac{v_{a}+v_{b}}{1+\frac{v_{a}v_{b}}{c^{2}}}$

Since it is given that

$v_{a}=0.6c\\\\v_{b}=0.6c$

Applying values in the formula we get

$v_{ab}=\frac{0.6c+0.6c}{1+\frac{(0.6c)^{2}}{c^{2}}}\\\\v_{ab}=0.88c$