Errors in Unit R, 2/e

NOTE: In all that follows I will use <letter name> to represent a Greek-letter variable, ^ to indicate that the next quantity is superscripted, _ to indicate that the next quantity is subscripted, and boldface to indicate a vector quantity. I will also go against typographical convention and put punctuation outside of quotation marks to make whatever is enclosed in quotes exactly reflect what is (or should be) in the text. The date at the end of each entry specifies the date on which the error was first posted.

  • page 24: third line in first full paragraph: change "Faby-Perot" to "Fabry-Perot". (5/29/03)
  • page 30: end of the 7th line from the bottom: "vx" should be "v_x". (08/13/04)
  • page 33, caption to figure R2.7c: change "about x = +1 m" to "about x = +0.6 s". (5/29/03)
  • page 33, caption to figure R2.7a, last line: units are seconds, not meters. (5/29/03)
  • page 35, problem R2T.8, first line: delete the comma.
  • page 38, figure R2.13: sign B should be located a significant distance (at least 0.5 cm) to the right of the train end, not almost at the train end, as currently shown. Without this change, part (b) of problem R2S.11 does not make much sense. (5/29/03)
  • page 39, problem R2A.1, third line: change "1 m of camera" to "1 m of a camera". (5/29/03)
  • page 55, problem R3R.2, last line: insert ": the ship's velocity is" before the final period. (8/17/05)
  • page 56, fifth line under section R4.2: change "of flash" to "of the flash". (8/17/05)
  • page 61, seventh line in section R4.3: reference should be to chapter R7, not R6. (8/17/05)
  • page 64, second line below exercise R4X.2: <delta>s should not be squared, and replace <delta>s inside the square root with <delta>d. (5/29/03)
  • page 67, figure R4.8b: vertical axis should be labeled Y, not y. (08/13/04)
  • page 68, third line before section R4.7: insert "or equal to" after "is always greater than". (8/17/05)
  • page 70, problem R4S.2. Part (a) would be clearer if it read "If clocks on the ground were to measure the same time between the muon's birth and death as the muon clock does, ...". (8/13/04)
  • page 72, problem R4R.2, third line: change "between earth and Pluto" with "from earth to Pluto". (8/13/04)
  • page 73, answer to exercise R4X.1. The answer assumes that the paint sprayers operate continuously. One can in principle spray brief bursts of paint, but the bursts would have to be coordinated by synchronized clocks, and we know that observers in different reference frames will disagree about whether clocks are synchronized. (8/17/05)
  • page 85, third paragraph of section R5.5, first line: delete "passes" after "a pulse of muons". (8/17/05)
  • page 98, figure R6.2. The scale of the colored grid should have been made the same as the scale of the black grid. If it had been, point A would be at exactly x = 7 m and y = 4 m. (5/29/03)
  • page 105, caption to figure R6.6, fourth to last line: change "position of P" to "position of R". (8/17/05)
  • page 109, line before equation R6.14a: change "(1 - <beta>^2)^1/2" to "(1 - <beta>^2)^ - 1/2" and "4/5" to "4/25". (8/17/05)
  • page 117, second to last line: delete the final "the". (8/17/05)
  • page 127, equation R7.9: change "10.6" to "10.7". (8/17/05)
  • page 130, seventh line above problem R7S.3: change "clock" to "clocks". (8/17/05)
  • page 130, problem R7S.8, fourth-to-last line. Put absolute value bars around <delta>x<prime>. (8/17/05)
  • page 136, first line of second paragraph: reference should be to R5.2, not R5.3. (8/17/05)
  • page 142, first line of exercise R8X.2: change "to the right" to "below". (8/17/05)
  • page 143, third paragraph in section R8.3, second sentence: change the "greater than" symbol between <delta>d and <delta>t to a "less than or equal to" symbol. (8/17/05)
  • page 151, problem R8S.8, third line: replace "equal and opposite speeds" with "opposite velocities but equal speeds". (8/13/04)
  • page 151, problem R8R.1, fifth line: replace "according sensor" with "according to sensor". (5/29/03)
  • page 169, problem R9S.3, first line: replace "problem, friend" with "problem, a friend" (5/29/03)
  • page 169, problem R9S.7, first line: the quoted price should be $0.04 per MJ to be consistent with the next two problems. (The price of electricity in CA went up between editions, what can I say?) (5/29/03)
  • page 178: first line of equation R10.7b: subscripts should go in the order 4123, not 4231. (8/17/05)

(5/29/03) Thanks to Vic DeCarlo, David Tanenbaum, Richard Hughes, Richard Mawhorter, and Jonathan Mitschele for finding many of the errors posted on this date.

(8/13/04) Thanks to Sharon Stephenson, Lior Burko, Charles Ross for many of the errors entered on this date.

(8/17/05) Thanks to Jeffrey Schnick, Eric Jensen, and Tom Bernatowicz for errors posted on this date.

Go back to the index or back to the top.