If you shine a laser toward a friend in a spaceship who is moving away from you at half the speed of light, what do you see? you see the laser light pass your friend at slightly more than the speed of light. you see the laser light pass your friend at the speed of light. you see the laser light pass your friend at 1.5 times the speed of light. you see the laser light pass your friend at half the speed of light. you see the laser light pass your friend at slightly less than the speed of light.

Visualize the problem and identify special cases first examine the problem by drawing a picture and visualizing the motion. apply newton's 2nd law, ∑f⃗ =ma⃗ , to each body in your mind. don't worry about which quantities are given. think about the forces on each body: how are these consistent with the direction of the acceleration for that body? can you think of any special cases that you can solve quickly now and use to test your understanding later? one special case in this problem is if m2=0, in which case block 1 would simply fall freely under the acceleration of gravity: a⃗ 1=−gj^.