casomerville
New Member
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- Jul 16, 2005
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- HSC
- 2006
I agree. I also took the question to mean from 20000km to 80000km.machiavel said:Here is my solution. It took me ages to get the html right.
http://machiavelli-imp.livejournal.com/2353.html
And for the last time, you can absolutely not use GPE=mgh because:
1. g is not constant when the changes in altitude are so large. The whole point of learning Newton's Law of Gravitation is to point out that g changes and G is constant (Look, Q1 from today's paper).
2. We don't know what m is!!!
Aaargh....
Now, for all those people out there. You can't use GPE = mgh, you can't use F=ma and you certaintly can't use mass or time dilation.
You had to use the GPE formula. The question was ambiguous but if you took it from 10000 to 80000, the answer was 1.75MJ. If you took it from 20000 to 80000, the answer was 0.75MJ. The solution contained in the link is the right one. No other answer beside those two could possibly be true and until someone produces the exact wording of the exam question, it is impossible to know whether it was supposed to be 10000 or 20000km.