Chapter 5, Problem 29P

According to special relativity, a rod of length L moving at velocity v will shorten by an amount 6, given by:

$\delta =L\left(1-\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}\right)$

where c is the speed of light (about 300×10⁶ m/s). Consider a rod of 2 m long, and make three plots of d as a function of v for $0\le v\le 300\times {10}^6$ m/s. In the first plot use linear scale for both axes. In the second plot use logarithmic scale for v and linear scale for d, and in the third plot use logarithmic scale for both v and d. Which of the plots is the most informative?