Answer Happy

a 5. A ball of mass m traveling at a speed of 0.80c has a perfectly inelastic collision with an identical ball at rest. If Newtonian physics were correct for these speeds, momenutum conservation would require that the resulting ball would be of mass 2m and traveling at a speed of 0.40c. However, since the speeds are relativistic, then a relativistic collision analysis must be used to determine the mass and speed of the ball after the collision. (a) What is the initial total energy? Give your answer as a fraction of mc2. Don't forget that there are two balls. (b) Because energy can be transformed into mass, and vice versa, you cannot assume that the final mass is 2m. Instead, let the final state of the system be an unknown mass M traveling at the unknown speed u. You have two conservation laws. Find M and u.