Quite apart from effects due to the Earth's rotational and orbital motions, a laboratory frame is not strictly an inertial frame because a particle placed at rest there will not, in general, remain at rest; it will fall under gravity. Often, however, events happen so quickly that we can ignore free fall and treat the frame as inertial. Consider, for example, a 1.0-MeV electron (for which v = 0.941c) projected horizontally into a lab- oratory test chamber and moving through a distance of 20 cm. (a) How long would it take, and (b) how far would the electron fall during this interval? What can you conclude about the suitability of the laboratory as an inertial frame in this case?

Hrishant Goswami , 9 Years ago

Grade 10