10. Muons are subatomic particles generated in the upper atmosphere when cosmic rays strike the Earth. Although their ve

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10 Muons Are Subatomic Particles Generated In The Upper Atmosphere When Cosmic Rays Strike The Earth Although Their Ve 1 (99.78 KiB) Viewed 24 times

10. Muons are subatomic particles generated in the upper atmosphere when cosmic rays strike the Earth. Although their velocity is typically near the speed of light in vacuum, they have such a short lifetime that they don't live long enough to travel a distance equal to the distance from the upper atmosphere to the surface of the Earth. Yet they do actually reach the surface of the Earth because of time dilation. Because they move so fast, to us it as if their time passes much more slowly than ours, so judged by our clocks a fast moving muon lives much longer than a slow moving one. But the muon thinks its own time is passing normally, yet it surely would agree with us that it does reach the ground. How can this be? Because it is moving so fast its mass increases so it falls faster b) It actually teleports part of the way in an instant of time c) It thinks everything else is moving at near the speed of light, so all distances, including the distance from the upper atmosphere to the ground are shrunk d) It is moving so fast it has enough energy to make a new muon before it runs out of time. It isn't really the same muon that reaches the ground. e) Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says that many muons will live long enough, just by probability to reach the Earth COB 11. The sonic boom is caused when airplanes or other objects (such as the tip of a whip when it cracks") move faster than the speed of sound in air. Is it possible to ever break the light barrier, just as we can break the sound barrier? No, Einstein tells us nothing can ever go faster than the speed of light b) Yes, although one cannot ever go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, it is possible to exceed the speed of light inside a medium, such as water, in which light moves more slowly then it does in a vacuum. 12. Light coming from stars in very distant galaxies is generally redder (meaning it has lower frequency) than light from stars in our own galaxy. What is the currently accepted theory explaining this? a) That the farther light travels the more "tired” it gets, i.e. the more energy it loses, and therefore the redder it gets, since lower frequency light has less energy b) That stars in more distant galaxies must be much heavier than stars in our own galaxy, so the light coming out of them is reddened by their tremendous gravitational field c) That the space between us and the distant galaxies is expanding and thus it appears as if the galaxies are moving away from us) which results in a stretching of the wavelength of the light from those galaxies