Walker, Halliday & Resnick — Rotation: Problem 29

Figure 10-22 shows an early method of measuring the speed of light that makes use of a rotating slotted wheel. A beam of light passes through one of the slots at the outside edge of the wheel, travels to a distant mirror, and returns to the wheel just in time to pass through the next slot in the wheel. One such slotted wheel has a radius of 5.0 cm and 500 slots around its edge. Measurements taken when the mirror is $L = 500 \text{ m}$ from the wheel indicate a speed of light of $3.0 \times 10^5 \text{ km/s}$. (a) What is the (constant) angular speed of the wheel? (b) What is the linear speed of a point on the edge of the wheel?