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. An early method of measuring the speed of light makes use of a rotating slotted wheel. A beam of light passes through a slot at the outside edge of the wheel, travels to a distant mirror, and returns to the wheel just in time to pass through the next slot in the wheel. One such slotted wheel has a radius of 5 cm and 500 slots at its edge. Measurements taken when the mirror was L = 500 m from the wheel indicated a speed of light of 3.0 x10^5 km/s.. What was the (constant) angular speed of the wheel?. (b) What was the linear speed of a point on the edge of the wheel?

User Willjcroz
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1 Answer

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The time to travel to the mirror and back was
t=450/3E+8

The distance from one slot to another is
2*pi*0.05/550

the time to rotate the distance was
t=2*pi/(w*550)

combine
2*pi/(w*550)=450/3E+8