Space ship Z is traveling at 185,000 miles per second. Spaceship Q is traveling at 170,000 miles per second.
What is the ratio of speeds (Z/Q) of the two spaceships? Express your answer in terms of the maximum speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second.
The ratio of speeds (Z/Q) can be found by dividing the speed of spaceship Z by the speed of spaceship Q:
(Z/Q) = 185,000/170,000 = 1.088
To express this ratio in terms of the maximum speed of light, we divide by the speed of light:
(Z/Q) = 1.088/186,000 = 0.000005849
Therefore, the ratio of speeds (Z/Q) of the two spaceships, expressed in terms of the maximum speed of light, is approximately 0.000005849.
actually, it makes no sense to compare Z/Q, which has no units, to the speed of light, which has units of miles/second
You're correct. The ratio of Z/Q as calculated earlier has no units, so it cannot be directly compared to the speed of light, which has units of miles per second.
To provide a meaningful comparison, we can normalize the speeds of Z and Q by the speed of light:
Normalized speed of Z = 185,000 / 186,000 = 0.9946
Normalized speed of Q = 170,000 / 186,000 = 0.91398
Now we can express the ratio of the normalized speeds:
(Z/Q) = 0.9946 / 0.91398 = 1.0872
So, the ratio of speeds (Z/Q) is approximately 1.0872 relative to the speed of light.
To find the ratio of speeds (Z/Q) of the two spaceships, we can divide the speed of spaceship Z by the speed of spaceship Q.
Ratio of speeds (Z/Q) = Speed of spaceship Z / Speed of spaceship Q
= 185,000 miles per second / 170,000 miles per second
Simplifying the ratio, we get:
Ratio of speeds (Z/Q) = (185,000 / 170,000)
= 1.0882
To express this ratio in terms of the maximum speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second, we divide the ratio by the maximum speed of light:
Ratio of speeds (Z/Q) = 1.0882 / 186,000 miles per second
= 0.00000585
Therefore, the ratio of speeds (Z/Q) of the two spaceships, expressed in terms of the maximum speed of light, is approximately 0.00000585.