If you took a large, hollow ball and lined the inside of it with mirrors, placed some neat flash light with a video camera in the middle of it-what exactly would you see?
2007-10-20 22:39:48 · 4 answers · asked by Buckminster 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
In response to Prof. ZikZak's answer, I looked up the following link from '98 that gives 'light' to MIT's success of getting a whole lot closer to a perfect mirror.
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:WPo7Ms_In2EJ:web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1998/mirror.html+perfect+mirror&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
So, to add to my question with this:
If the inside of the sphere was made out of a mirror that had little absorption, would that keep the light 'lit' like the Prof's response mentioned?
2007-10-21 01:15:02 · update #1
Interesting Hyperthetical question - if the internal environment was also a perfect vacuum and in zero gravity would the photons keep bouncing around indefinately. Probably not because the sphere surface would absorb their energy on impact. Any physicists out there want to put us out of our misery?
2007-10-20 22:49:05 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No real mirror is perfect; some absorption always occurs. This will prevent the space from being perpetually lit by the single flash.
2007-10-21 07:34:17 · answer #2 · answered by ZikZak 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
if the mirrors are curved and line up with the ball without creating any angles then you would see something like many small orbs of light or just one reflection depending on the angle you observe
2007-10-21 05:44:39 · answer #3 · answered by mountz 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
awesome question. I don't know, but cool ?.
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2007-10-21 05:43:32 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋