Darn time dilation question!! (1 Viewer)

[sinophile2]

A spaceship flies past a planet at 0.6c. The pilot and his girlfriend on the planet wave at the other for 4.0 seconds.

a) Calculate how long the pilot sees his girlfriend waving.
b) Calculate how long the girlfriend sees the pilot waving.

The answers are 3.2s and 5s. The calculations are a simple matter to go through. But can anyone tell me what value is assigned to t0 and tv in both (a) and (b), and explain why?

 

[sinophile2]

And why is tv=4 and not to?

 

[darkchild69]

Yeah, this is all to do with the twin paradox and if you read a little into it, specifically the Langevin explanation, saying that as the "astronaut" is accelerating, it is the acceleration which causes "symmetry breaking" between the inertial and non-inertial reference frames, so it is this "accelerating" frame of reference which is to be considered the one which undergoes time dilation.
I can see where the misconception occurs, but thinking about it, "special relativity" is when we are considering inertial frames of reference. Seeing as the astronaut has had to undergo an acceleration to get it up to relativistic speeds, then it is no longer to be considered an inertial frame of reference. But, then again.. The Earth isn't a true inertial frame of reference either now.. is it!?!?