Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2002/ib/paper-4/18d/c/solution

Choose event , when the trailing end reaches the entrance, as and as the primed origin. Write , . Before impact, the shed-frame worldlines are entrance , back , trailing end , and leading end . The Lorentz transformation is
Thus in the javelin frame the ends have and , while the entrance and back have and . These four lines in each frame produce the requested spacetime diagrams. The diagrams show initial motion; dashed portions extrapolate that motion beyond first impact and are not a model of collision dynamics.
Figure 1.
Javelin and shed worldlines in both inertial frames, with entrance event A, first impact B and a simultaneous shed-frame containment slice
. Details.

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