Your dog has been diagnosed with a terminal illness for which there is no cure. The Veterinarian expects that it will live for 1 year before it succumbs to the condition. You have the idea that if you could keep the dog alive a little longer, a cure might be found. You decide to build a spaceship to travel close to the speed of light in order to slow time down for your dog, thus "extending" its lifespan. You decide that if the dog were to survive for 10 years a cure would likely be available. How fast would the spaceship have to travel to extend your dog's lifespan from the expected 1 year on Earth to 10 years speeding through space (while you waited on Earth)?

I understand to use time dilation equation.
change in tm= change in ts / (square root of one subtract (velocity squared divided by speed of light squared))

can someone help me determine the variables from the question?
i think change in tm (time measured by an observer not in the same frame of reference) which in this case is on earth at 9 years or 4730400 minutes.
velocity is to be determined. and the speed of light is 3.00 x 10^8.

I don't know why you are saying 9 years

10sqrt(1-(v/c)^2)=1
100c^2-100v^2=1c^2
v= c*sqrt 0.99=.995 c

To determine the variables from the question, we can break down the information given:

1. The dog's expected lifespan on Earth (tm1) is 1 year or 525,600 minutes.
2. You want to extend the dog's lifespan to 10 years (tm2) or 5,256,000 minutes while you wait on Earth.
3. The speed of light (c) is 3.00 x 10^8 meters per second.

Now let's plug the given values into the time dilation equation:

tm2 = tm1 / √(1 - (v^2/c^2))

We need to solve for the velocity (v), so let's rearrange the equation:

(v^2/c^2) = 1 - (tm1 / tm2)^2

Now replace the variables with their respective values:

(v^2/c^2) = 1 - (525,600 / 5,256,000)^2

(v^2/c^2) = 1 - (0.1)^2

(v^2/c^2) = 1 - 0.01

(v^2/c^2) = 0.99

Now, take the square root of both sides to solve for v:

√(v^2/c^2) = √0.99

v/c = √0.99

v = c * √0.99

Substituting the value for c:

v = 3.00 x 10^8 * √0.99

v ≈ 2.96 x 10^8 meters per second

Therefore, the spaceship would need to travel at approximately 2.96 x 10^8 meters per second, which is very close to the speed of light, in order to extend your dog's lifespan from 1 year on Earth to 10 years while traveling through space.