Re: reflective light

From: N. Thornton (bigcat_at_meeow.co.uk)
Date: 12/06/04 

Date: 5 Dec 2004 18:25:11 -0800

edramshaw@funksoulproductions.com (ed) wrote in message news:<db80ca78.0412041821.4b0e707e@posting.google.com>...
> Let me prefice this by saying I am not a scientist. I have tendecees
> but I am way too unorganized to gather enough details to prove
> anything.
>
> I always had this idea and was about to expirement when I came up with
> a few things in this forum but none really address the issues. I was
> wondering if anyone could help.
>
> I hear there is no such thing as one way mirrors, that more accurate
> descripition would be partially reflective mirrors so this will weigh
> in but here goes.
>
> Theoratically what would happen if I constructed a 3" cube out of one
> way mirrors and:
>
> 1) Shined a lightsource such as a flash light into the box?

as you say, the brightness level will go way up. In reality no mirror
is perfect, there will be loss at aech reflection, so the gain will be
nothing huge. Still, with 95% reflective mirrors the gain would be
fairly big.

> 2) Mounted a bright led light in the center of 3" cube constructed of
> standard mirror glass and illuminated it?
>
> 3) Shined a more concentrated form of light such as a laser into the
> cube?

laser light is coherent, which changes things a bit, but it'd still be
bright in there, with multiple laser beams.

> At first thought I would think that question 1 would result in an
> "implosion" of light due to the constant re-reflection of light. This
> energy could then be harnessed to produce electricity.

The energy input to the box is just the same as if it has no mirrors.
The only reason you get high light levels is because the light is all
reflected. Add anything that uses that light to make electricity, and
it wont reflect much of the light, it will absorb it to make other
energy forms.

Imagine your box with a laser beam, and a fly in it. If the fly
interrupts the beam as soon as it gets in the box, before reflection,
then there is no beam to reflect, and the fly gets zapped once, not 20
times. Same wherever the fly sits, it still only ever gets one laser
beam.

> If the one way
> mirror is really only partially reflective on both sides than
> something should still happen.

not a great deal though, after a few reflections there wont be any
more gain.

> Without taking up too much of anyones time, I think you get the idea.
> The thought is that something should happen if light can be introduced
> to a closed and inwardly relfective area. Does anyone have any
> insight?

NT

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