If you were in the centre of a sphere, that is covered in a reflective surface what would you see?

Question

this question has baffled every physicist iv asked, what do you suggest?

In regards to light, it is daytime in the sphere otherwise you would not see anything!!!

Answer 1

How many people actually read and understand both the question and the stipulations along with it?

e.g. 'In regards to light it is daytime in the sphere.'

Any answers claiming it will be dark have ignored the above.

To make sense of the serious point of the question: for 'daytime' read 'a directionless ambient lightsource'; like sitting in a room during the day, with a large unobscured window that's not actually within view . There's plenty of daylight but you can't see the source and there are no shadows as such, just various degrees of shade behind objects close to the walls.

Now to the answer: you would see exactly the same thing as you would if you were facing a half-sphere, an up-side down image of yourself, distorted by spherical aberation whose extent would be determined by the radius of the sphere and your closeness to the surface.

There would be no infinity of distortions because the mirrors are not plane (flat) and so would not reinforce an infinity of reflections in each other. You would not be burned to crisp or be blinded by flash because no surface reflects 100% and losses due to absorption would keep the light level constant.

Answer 2

Not too tough to answer if you make a few presumptions.

Ans A: If the point from where you are observing is negligibly small, i.e it does not create a reflection, and you are the source of light, you will see the sphere to be uniformally illuminated with no particular reflection.

Ans B: Lets add some complications. If you were inside the sphere and big enough to create a reflection, the images formed will depend on your size, colour and the source of light and the point of observation. The possiblities are infinite. Wanna try this at home? its easy, get a sphere with an internal reflective surface which is open at two ends. Use one opening to observe or if you have the gadgets, insert a camera that can be moved around. next place a light source and the object whose reflection you wanna observe. try out different combinations and have fun.

Answer 3

I Like Icarus62's answer.
But I suppose. that each pupil would have a reflection of each pupil would have a reflection of each pupil, would have.......

What about the area behind or above or below you?
suppose there were two people in the sphere?

I don't think you could test it with a half sphere, because you would have no reflective surface behind you, reflecting back to the surface in front of you. or would it ? wouldn't you be in the way?

This is an excellent question, I cannot answer it, and I am not even a physicist!

Answer 4

If you looked with one eye, and the lens of your eye was precisely in the centre of the sphere, then I think you would see a reflection of the centre of your eyeball in every direction, because the light coming into your eye from each point on the inside of the sphere could only be coming from what's reflected from your eyeball. In practice this would probably be a very dim reflection of the dark colour of the pupil of your eye.

However... if you moved your eye slightly, even by looking around, you would no longer be seeing the same thing in all directions. Then it would get *really* complicated! :-) My guess is that you would see squashed and reversed images of your face. One way to get a rough idea would be to look into the concave side of a very shiny soup spoon, from an appropriate distance away, since that would approximate to part of the internal surface of your sphere.

Intriguing question! :-)

Answer 5

Not as much the answer as a way to get the answer, if you can find someone on here with Autocad 3D Max or similar they could model the sphere in 3D with a reflective coating, place the light source and you wherever in the sphere you wish them to be, and then render the image that you would see from whatever direction you looked.

Answer 6

it depends on what else is in there - if it was only me and a source of light, then i would only see reflections of myself and the source of the light which i am assuming is within the sphere, otherwise it would be pitch dark as the coating would prevent light passing through from the exterior. In a sense we are all within a sphere of atmosphere and thus can perceive all that is around us within certain frequencies ie the visible spectrum. So i would say again that it depends on what else is in the sphere, and where the source of light is emanating from, if in fact it emanates from an origin, or is it an imaginary scenario with a general level of light with no source? I ramble........

Answer 7

You would see absolutely nothing because there is no light inside it, even if it were daytime, the reflecting surface would make sure that no light can enter the sphere.

Answer 8

If the sun was inside the sphere or a bulb of sme kind then you would not see anything as the light would reflect infinatly and the sphere would become so bright it would destroy you eyes.

Answer 9

I would see the inside of the sphere I guess, if I could see anything... of course, it would be dark, for there can't be daytime in the actual sphere, but it is daytime outside...

I'm confused on what you are asking

Answer 10

it depends how big the sphere was.

if it was a sphere that was only around your head ie, you had your head stuck in a ball, and there was some sort of "ambient light source" you would see a smudge of colour as your face is reflected and stretched.

imagine if the sphere was the size of a house . . .