Cosmonaut Carla is preparing for the Intergalactic 5000 race. She practices for her race on her handy race track of radius R, carrying a stopwatch with her. Her racecar maintains a constant speed v during her practices. For this problem, you can assume that v>0.1 c, where c is the speed of light.
a. How much time elapses on Carla’s stopwatch with each revolution?
Carla decides to do a fun experiment during her training. She places two stationary clocks down: Clock A at the center of the race track, i.e. the origin; and Clock B at a point on the race track denoted as (R, 0). She then begins her training.
For parts (b) through (d), we define Carla’s inertial reference frame (CIRF) as an inertial reference frame in which Carla is momentarily at rest, and which has the same origin of coordinates as the lab frame. Thus, CIRF is a new inertial frame each moment. The times on the clocks and stopwatch are all calibrated such that they all read 0 in CIRF when she passes by Clock B for the first time.
b. In the lab frame (the reference frame of the clocks, which are at rest), what is the offset between Clock A and Clock B ?
c. If Carla’s stopwatch measures an elapsed time \tau, what does Clock A measure in CIRF?
d. If Carla’s stopwatch measures an elapsed time \tau, what does Clock B measure in CIRF?