1 Algebra (Part 1)

Variables

Algebra is concerned with the evaluation of, and the relationships between, variables.

A variable is a quantity that changes. Variables are represented by letters. So e.g. in

physics books, velocity is v, force is F, temperature is T, and so on. It is important to
remember that these letters just stand for numbers; either because

1. we haven’t worked out what the number is, or

2. because we want to keep things general- because we’re interested in the
relationships between numbers, not the numbers themselves.

A variable that changes by itself is called an independent variable. A variable whose

change is dependent on another variable is called a dependent variable.

For instance, the velocity of a missile increases with the force delivered by its engine.
The velocity is the dependent variable, the force is the independent variable. A
realistic missile will accelerate as the force of its engine increases.

A single dependent variable can have more than one independent variable. For
instance, compaction of a car on impact depends on two variables, the speed of the car
and the hardness of the object on which it impacts. Low speed on a soft object means
no damage; high speed on hard objects, the end of the race. But low speed on hard
objects, and high speed on soft might be fine (see next pag).

The rules that link dependent and independent variables form the majority of algebra.
These rules take the form of equations.
Equations

A general relationship between variables is called an equation. Equations are handy

book-keeping devices, but they also give physics information. We will be dealing with
four kinds of equations, linear equations, quadratic equations, higher-order and
exponential equations, corresponding to the way variables grow and change in them.

Linear equations are equations in which all the variables appear to the first power.
That is, you get v not v2, or v3, a not loge(a) or 2a, and so on.

Let y be the dependent variable and x the independent variable. Then the general form
of a linear equation is
px+ qy=r .

p, q and r are just numbers, sometimes called coefficients in the textbooks. The
general form is handy for “book-keeping”.

Linear Equations as Book-Keeping Methods

Example 1. Linear equations are useful for book-keeping, that is, for deciding on
values and keeping track of these. Suppose you’ve created a war game in which the
destruction of an enemy fighter is worth 10 points. To keep this consistent with other
parts of the game, you need the destruction of five fighters (5F) and three bombers
(3B) to add to a score of 110.
5 F+3 B=110
Since we’ve decided that F=10, we can substitute this for F and solve the equation for
B;
50+3 B=110
3 B=60
B=60 /3
B=20
Each bomber must be worth 20 points.

Example 2. There’s often more information to organise than one equation can cope
with. Suppose you’ve expanded that same war game to include enemy helicopters and
missiles. To fit in with previous versions of the game, the distributors want 4
helicopters (H) plus 5 missiles (M) to score 290, and 6 helicopters plus 2 missiles to
score 160 points. These can be written as two simultaneous equations;
4 H +5 M =2906 H +2 M =160

Multiply top by 2, bottom by 5;

( 4 H +5 M =290 ) ×2= ( 8 H +10 M =580 )( 6 H +2 M =160 ) ×5=( 30 H+ 10 M =800 )

Take the top from the bottom;

8 H +10 M =580 ¿ ( ¿ ) −22 H =-220
Solve the result for H:
H=−220/−22=10

So helicopters are worth 10 points.

Now substitute H=10 into any of the original equations, and solve for M;
6 ×10+ 2 M =160
60+2 M =160
2 M =100
M =50

So missiles are worth 50 points.

Exercise 1
Solve the following linear equations for the unknown variable x.

1. y=2, 5x+2y=19
2. y=3, 4x+3y=37
3. y=4.5, 2x+5y=28.9
4. y=3.8, 4.9x+2.3y=17.07
5. y=5, 4x+3y=5. What might the answer mean?

Solve the following simultaneous linear equations for the unknown variables.
1. 2x+4y=14, 3x+5y=21
2. 3.1x+2.4y=29.99, 4.1x+1.1y=18.58
3. 4.6x+10.7y=29.99, 5.9x+2.6y=-13.14

Linear Equations as Physical Laws

An equation can be rearranged so that one variable stands alone. The loner is usually
the dependent variable, and this gives us the functional form of the equation. The
functional form of a linear equation is
y=mx+c ,
Here y changes with x according to the numbers m and c. We say that y is a function
of x. Because the variables are in the first power, linear functions can be represented
graphically as a straight line (hence the name “linear”).

m = the gradient of y; how quickly y changes with x. In a graph, the gradient affects
the slope of the line.
c = the intercept of y; how much of y you get independent of how x changes. In a
graph, the intercept is the point where the line cuts the y axis.

Because equations relate variables, and variables represent physical quantities, the
laws of physics are given in the form of equations. You’ve probably heard of:
2
E=m c

which we’ll return to later. But, sticking to linear equations, the most useful is that
relating distance, speed and time.

Distance, Speed and Time

Speed s is defined as distance d moved per time t taken,

d
s=
t
A linear function in which distance is in units of length (metres, kilometres, or miles),
and time is in seconds, minutes or hours. Taking speed to be constant, we can rewrite
the above as
d
t=
s
a linear function giving time t in terms of distance travelled d at speed s, and as

d=st
a linear function giving distance d in terms of speed s for a given time t. This is the
most convenient relationship in graphical terms.

The relationships are easily remembered by the order of dst in distance, or by the
triangle

A lot of physics hangs on this simple relationship. These functions are useful for race
games, transport logistics in life and civilization-building games, and material
logistics in war games (how far the army goes, and how fast). Suppose you are
commissioned to create a virtual railway, with a choice of three generations of rolling
stock, early, middle-era and late-era steam. Then organizing the timetables will
depend on the speeds the different generations can manage, and the distances to be
covered.

Example 3. An early steam train can travel at 32 kilometres per hour.

The distance from Virtual Stalybridge to Virtual Glossop is 11 miles. How long a time
interval should you program for the journey?

We need time in terms of distance and speed,

d 11 km 11
t= = = h=0.34375 h
s 32 km/h 32
0.347374 hours. Multiply this by 60 to get the number of minutes;
0.34375 h ×60 min s /h=20.625 min s
Around 21 minutes, good enough for a train timetable in 1830.

Example 4. A mid-era steam train needs to complete the 22km

journey from Virtual Abergavenny to Virtual Merthyr in 14 minutes. What speed
should the train travel?

We need speed in terms of distance and time. First convert the minutes to a fraction of
an hour by dividing by 60,
 14 min s
=0.2333 h
60 min s /h

then put this figure into the correct function,

d 22 km
s= = =94.2857 km/h
t 0.2333 h

A comfortable speed for a mid Victorian train.

Example 5. A late-era steam train can reach 150km/h.

How far can it get in 20 minutes?

That’s distance in terms of speed and time, with time in hours being
20 min s
=0.3333 h
60 min s /h
giving
d=st=150 km/h × 0.3333 h=50 km .

We can plot distance travelled against time taken, given a straight line with slope m
measuring the speed and intercept c = 0 (compare d = st with y = mx + c).

Acceleration

Linear equations can also cope with acceleration, as long as it’s constant.
Acceleration is the change in speed per unit time,
change in speed
a= .
change in time
If a vehicle starts at speed s0, and undergoes acceleration a km/s for t seconds, its new
speed sn is
 sn=at+ s 0.

Acceleration is measured in units of distance per time squared, with amounts to speed
per time. So e.g. 100km/h2 is the same as 100km per hour per hour.

Example 6. A late steam train is cruising at 120km/h when it passes an emergency

signal, , “accelerate to 145km/h in the next ten minutes or risk collision” (which
incidentally means a second train is coming from behind). How great an acceleration
is needed?

The acceleration a needed is

change in speed needed
a=
change in time
145 km/h−120 km/h
¿
10 min s ÷ 60 min s /h
25 km/h
¿
0.1667 h
2
¿ 150 km/h

That’s 150 km/h change in speed every hour, hence km per hour per hour, hence
km/h2.

Example 8. A late-era steam train is travelling at 80 km/h when the engineer realises
he is behind schedule. What speed will the train reach at its maximum acceleration of
60 km/h2 over 30 minutes? (30 minutes is 0.5h.)

sn=at+ s 0
2
¿ 60 km/h ×0.5 h+ 80 km/h
¿ 30 km/h+80 km/h
¿ 110 km/h

Graphically, we have the straight line

sn=60 t+80 ,
With intercept at s=80 and a slope of 60 corresponding to the acceleration.
That last problem was a bit unrealistic because the engineer is unlikely to think of any
time as time zero. Let’s consider a similar problem in a more realistic setting.

Example 8. A late-era steam train is travelling at 100 km/h at 10 O’clock when the
engineer realises he is behind schedule. What train will the speed reach at its
maximum acceleration of 50 km/h2 over 40 minutes? (40 minutes is 0.6667h.)
v n=at +v 0
2
¿ 50 km/h ×0.6667 h+ 100 km/h
¿ 33.3333 km/h+100 km/h
¿ 133.3333 km/h

The graph of speed against time has some very interesting characteristics. Suppose we
draw the speed of the train between 6:00 and 14:00 hours. Up until 10:00h the speed
is constant (graph is level) at 100km/h. Between 10:00 and 10:40h there’s a sharp
acceleration of 50km/h, by the end of which the speed has risen to 133km/h. At this
point the engineer must be satisfied, so the speed remains constant at its new level
until 14:00h.
We might want to know how far the train has travelled in this time. In fact, this is
given by the area underneath the graph, which is found by a little geometry.

An Introduction to Force

Newton’s first law is the acceleration of an object is proportional to the force

applied, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object. Informally, the harder
you push something, the faster it goes; the heavier it is, the harder to push. In
symbols, that’s
F
a=
m
acceleration as a function in terms of force and mass. If we take force to be constant,
this is another linear equation. Since F is at the top of the fraction, a grows as F
grows; we say that acceleration is proportional to force. Mass m is on the bottom of
the fraction, so as m grows, a diminishes. We say that acceleration is inversely
proportional to mass.

Example 9. Consider a war game involving a virtual B52 bomber. The plane can go
faster if it throttles up its engines, so they develop more force; F gets bigger, so a gets
bigger. The bigger the bomb-load, the more mass the plane has, so the less it can
accelerate; m gets bigger, so a is smaller.

The plane can only get so much out of its engines, so while fully laden, you must
program a maximum speed. But the B52 will decrease in mass when it delivers its
payload, so the journey home out of enemy territory will always be quicker than the
journey into it.
Exercise 2.

Speed/distance/time problems,
1. How long would it take to cover
a) 80km at 33km/h?
b) 115km at 77km/h?
c) 366km at 130km/h?
2. How far would you get
a) in 10 minutes at 40km/h?
b) in 55 minutes at 55km/h?
c) in 1hour 40minutes at 110km/h
3. How fast have you travelled having gone
a) 120km in 1 hours 17 minutes?
b) 66km in 12 minutes?
c) 75km in 35 minutes?

Acceleration/deceleration problems.
1. How fast would you have to accelerate to reach
a) 130km/h from 80km/h after 20 minutes?
b) 210km/h from 110km/h after 40 minutes?
c) 80km/h from 130km/h after 10 minutes? What does this mean?
2. What would be your new speed if you accelerated
a) 50km/s2 for 10 minutes from 30km/h?
b) 80km/s2 for 20 minutes from 110km/h?
c) 75km/s2 for 17 minutes from 44km/h?
3. A train is moving at 110km/h, then accelerates at 60km/h2 over 10 minutes. What is
the new speed?
4. A plane travels at 280km/h between 2:00 and 3:30h, accelerates to 390km/h over
30minutes, and then travels at 390km/h until 6:00h. Draw a graph of the speed against
time.

Relativity in Distance, Speed and Time: Why the Above is Lying to You

Well, it’s not strictly a lie, just a flawed model of the universe- the Newtonian model.
At a speed approaching that of light, the relationship between time, distance and
velocity is no longer linear.

Take an observer aboard a spaceship travelling at 0.8660 the speed of light. Let him
observe a clock on a nearby planet. That clock would appear to the traveller to take
two hours to change from 12 to 1. Conversely, an observer standing by the clock
would see a timepiece aboard the spaceship also taking two hours over an hours’
change. The two times are symmetrically slow under time dilation. How can this be?

Without going into special relativity, time, for objects in motion, is subject to a kind of
perspective. Consider ordinary perspective, where sizes and shapes apparently change
according to viewpoint. If Ann sees Bob at a distance he appears small to her, and at
the same time Ann appears small to Bob. Neither Anne nor Bob have changed size
from their own points of view, only from the other’s. As Anne approaches Bob, their
sizes appear to increase. Similarly, if the space traveller slowed down to the speed of
the observer by the clock, their times fall back into step.
The rule is that time tl shown by a moving object has the following relationship to
time t experience by someone observing the object:
t
t l=
√1−v 2 /c 2
Where c is the speed of light (300,000 km/s)
t, tl is in seconds
v is the speed the object is travelling in km/s.
This is a nice example of a higher-order equation. On the whole, you’ll just be
expected to be able to substitute figures into these, and boil them down to a simple
answer.

Example 10. At v=200,000km/s, what would a time of t=600s for the space traveller
appear to be for the man by the clock (and vice-versa)?
600
t l=
√1−20000 02 /30000 02
¿ 804.98 s

You’ve probably heard of the “Twin Paradox”. One twin boards a ship which moves
off at the speed of light, while the other remains on Earth. The first twin travels to a
distant star and back, to find that years have passed on Earth, and that his twin is now
much older than he. This is correct, but it’s not due to the difference in speeds- we’ve
seen that time dilation is symmetric. What breaks the symmetry is acceleration. If the
twins could keep in touch throughout the journey, then as the travelling twin slowed
down, turned around, and re-accelerated he would see time leap ahead on Earth. This
effect is covered not be special relativity, which deals only with constant speeds, but
general relativity, which deals with acceleration and gravity.

If you want to build relativistic effects into a program, it would be a good enough
approximation to ignore the symmetry, and pretend that only the moving object
undergoes time dilation.

We’ll take c = 1 light year per year to simplify our calculations. This will give time in
years,
t
t l= , years
√1−v 2
Example 11. So if the travelling twin was in space for 1 year at 0.99 the speed of
light, then he would return to find his twin
1
t l=
√1−( 0.999 ×1 )2
1
¿
√1−0.998001
1
¿
0.04471
¿ 22.366

= 22.366 years older.

Arguing the other way, we can solve for t
t=t l √ 1−v 2 /c 2
or
t=t l √ 1−v 2 , years

and pretend this is the time the Earthbound twin would find his astronaut brother had
aged by.

Example 12. The Earthbound twin waves his brother off at 0.99 times the speed of
light, and is present for the astronaut’s return 80 years afterwards. By how much has
the astronaut aged?

t=8 0 √ 1−( 0.99 ×1 )

2

¿ 80 √ 0.0199
¿ 80 ×0.1411
= 11.2854 years.

The following formula will tell you have fast the ship must go for time tl to move 1/n
times the speed of t;

√
v= c 2 1−
or
( )1
n

√( 1
)
v= 1− , as a fraction of c
n

Example 13. What speed would the space-ship have to go for time to move 1/3rd as
slowly aboard ship than outside (given we’re pretending that the symmetry doesn’t
exist)?

√
v= 30000 02 1− ( )
1
3
¿ 244948.9734 m/ s

Or, if you like,

(√ 13 ), as a fraction of c
v= 1−
¿ 0.816
=0.816c.

Interstellar Distances

A light year is the distance light travels in one year, approximately

10,000,000,000,000 (ten trillion) kilometres (about 6 trillion miles). The nearest star is
Alpha Centauri at an average of or 4.37 light years away from the Sun. At 0.5 light
speed, it would take 4.37/0.5 = 8.74 years to reach Alpha Centauri- from the point of
view of an external observer. From the point of view of anyone making the journey it
would take
 t=8.74 √ 1− ( 0.5× 1 )
2

¿ 8.74 × 0.8660
¿ 7.569

= 7.569 years.

But this is still an appreciable chunk out of someone’s life. What about the effortless
interstellar travel we see predicted in Star Trek?

According to the Star Trek episode writer's guide for The Original Series, warp factors
are converted to multiples of c with the cubic function v = w3c, where w is the warp
factor, v is the velocity, and c is the speed of light. Accordingly, "warp 1" is equivalent
to the speed of light, "warp 2" is 8 times the speed of light, "warp 3" is 27 times the
speed of light, etc. No adequate explanation as to how relativistic effects are avoided
has been given.

Example 14.
a) What velocity as a multiple of light speed is warp 9?
b) How long would it take to reach Alpha Centauri from Earth at this velocity?
a)
3
v=9 c
¿ 729 c
b) d=st still applies, so t = d/s;
4.37/729=0.0059945

0.0059945 years, or 0.0059945365.25 = 2.19 days.

The Constellation class Enterprise NCC-1701 was just capable of this. At its cruising
of warp 6, the journey to Alpha Centauri would have taken 4.37/63 = 0.02023 years.
This is 0.02023  365.25 = 7.389 days- which sounds quite long in context.

Mass and Energy

Since we’re on Einstein, let’s go back to:

2
E=m c

Where m is mass (in kilograms) c is the velocity of light (300,000,000m/s2) and E is

energy (in Joules) (we don’t care that the same letters mean different things in
different equations- as long as we say what we mean). The formula tells us the rest
mass energy of the substance- the amount of energy needed to make familiar matter.
This is different from, say, the chemical energy of a substance- what we normally
think of as its fuel value. A 2-litre tank of petrol could get your moped 100km; a 2kg
bag of sugar, carefully used, could give you enough energy to climb Mount Everest.
But if you could take apart the mass of the petrol, or the sugar, you’d find a lot more
energy. By E=m c2, the mass in a 2kg bag of sugar could be converted to
2kg×300,000, 000m/s2×300,000,000m/s2 = 180,000,000,000,000,000 Joules of
energy, or 180,000 terajoules- about the annual electricity consumption of the USA.
Thec 2tells us that this equation is not linear, it’s a very simple quadratic- we’ll look at
quadratics in general in the next set of notes.
Example 15
a) How much rest mass energy is there in 1gram (=1/1000 kg) of matter?
b) A thunderstorm releases 10,000,000,000,000,000J of energy. How much rest-mass
energy would be needed to match this?
a) E=m c2=(1/1000)× 300,000 , 00 02=90,000,000,000,000 J (incidentally, just over
the energy released by the first atomic bomb dropped in war).
E
b) Rewrite E=m c2as m= 2 and substitute;
c
10,000,000,000,000,000
m= 2
=1.111
300,000 ,00 0
Just over a kilogram.

When you answer this kind of question in tests, I won’t object if you prefer to use
scientific notation, so e.g.
16
10 ×1 0
m= 2
=1.111
( 3 ×1 08 )
where the 3×108 is the velocity of light in scientific notation.

Exercise 3

1. a) At v=150,000km/s, what would a time of t=1200s for the space traveller appear
to be for the man by the clock (and vice-versa)?
b) What speed would the space-ship have to go for time to move 1/8th as slowly
aboard ship than outside (given we’re pretending that the symmetry doesn’t exist)?
2. Let warp factors are converted to multiples of c with the cubic function v = w3c,
where w is the warp factor, v is the velocity, and c is the speed of light.
a) What velocity as a multiple of light speed is warp 7?
b) How long would it take to reach Betelgeuse (640 light years from Earth) at this
velocity?
3. Suppose that transwarp factors are converted to multiples of c with the quartic
function v = w4c, where w is the transwarp factor, v is the velocity, and c is the speed
of light.
a) What velocity as a multiple of light speed is transwarp factor 7?
b) Transwarp 8?
c) The potentially earthlike planet Kepler 22-b was discovered in December, 2011 at
600 light years from Earth. How long would it take to reach at transwarp factor 9?
4 a) How much rest mass energy is there in 0.3kg of matter?
b) The maximum fuel energy of an Airbus A330 is 3,400,000,000,000J (or 3.4×1012J).
How much rest-mass energy would be needed to match this?