>>11760142The student was wrong. The student should have been able to understand that the model that they assume is Galilean relativity. He has demonstrated that:
1. He is not able to read the context of the question and assume the appropriate presuppositions.
2. He is not able to grasp that at small speeds like the ones in the question the effects of general relativity are effectively negligible.
3. He does not consider the available time he was given. He focused too much on an irrelevant detail that in reality could cost a lot and bring about more opportunities to make mistakes.
4. He applies formulas outside of the scope of the course without ever justifying where they come from. This demonstrates that either the student doesn't know where they come from or that he is sloppy and likes to skip large part of the reasoning that lead him to the answer, ensuring that if he makes a mistake, it's impossible to find where he went wrong.
5. He does not understand the concept of significant figures. An actual correct answer, accounting for significant figures in the given values would produce the answer 80mph. By giving more digits than is actually possible to know, he is effectively confusing the reader and misleading them by pretending that his answer is more accurate than it actually is. This is very dishonest and harmful and leads to all sorts of problems later on.
This is such a brazen disrespect for academic integrity, rigor and respect that frankly, if I were the teacher, I would have sent him back to the second grade.
