A modest supernova (the explosion of a massive star at the end of its life cycle) releases 1.5 x 10⁴⁴ J of energy in a few seconds. This is enough to outshine the entire galaxy in which it occurs. Suppose a star with the mass of our sun collides with an antimatter star of equal mass, causing complete annihilation. What is the ratio of the energy released in this star-antistar collision to the energy released in the supernova?

Your job is to synchronize the clocks in a reference frame. You are going to do so by flashing a light at the origin at t = 0 s. To what time should the clock at (x, y, z) = (30 m, 40 m, 0 m) be preset?

Bjorn is standing at x = 600 m. Firecracker 1 explodes at the origin and firecracker 2 explodes at x = 900 m. The flashes from both explosions reach Bjorn's eye at t = 3.0 μs. At what time did each firecracker explode?

A proton is accelerated to 0.999c. By what factor does the proton's momentum exceed its Newtonian momentum?

What are the rest energy, the kinetic energy, and the total energy of a 1.0 g particle with a speed of 0.80c?

A quarter-pound hamburger with all the fixings has a mass of 200 g. The food energy of the hamburger (480 food calories) is 2 MJ. By what factor does the energy equivalent exceed the food energy?

Some particle accelerators allow protons (p⁺) and antiprotons (p⁻) to circulate at equal speeds in opposite directions in a device called a storage ring. The particle beams cross each other at various points to cause p⁺ + p⁻ collisions. In one collision, the outcome is p⁺ + p⁻ → e⁺ + e⁻ + γ + γ, where γ represents a high-energy gamma-ray photon. The electron and positron are ejected from the collision at 0.9999995c and the gamma-ray photon wavelengths are found to be 1.0 x 10^-6 nm. What were the proton and antiproton speeds, as a fraction of c, prior to the collision?

The fission process n + ²³⁵U → ²³⁶U → ¹⁴⁴Ba + ⁸⁹Kr + 3n converts 0.185 u of mass into the kinetic energy of the fission products. What is the total kinetic energy in MeV?

The factor γ appears in many relativistic expressions. A value γ = 1.01 implies that relativity changes the Newtonian values by approximately 1% and that relativistic effects can no longer be ignored. At what kinetic energy, in MeV, is γ = 1.01 for (a) an electron, (b) a proton, and (c) an alpha particle?