What would happen if a light source was lite in a mirrored sphere?
Arch Teryx asked:
I’ve wondered about this before. It’s purely hypothetical and some variables must have restraints placed on them eg. the light source can’t absorb any energy nor can it impead the reflection. Second one has the ability to look in without light escaping.
I’ve wondered about this before. It’s purely hypothetical and some variables must have restraints placed on them eg. the light source can’t absorb any energy nor can it impead the reflection. Second one has the ability to look in without light escaping.
That said if a white light went off inside a mirrored sphere what would be the resulting effect. There would be infinite recursion from a infinite number of angles. Would interferance of various wavelengths cause a color shift or would there be a centralized ball of light.
I’ve often wondered the same thing myself, actually. This is my theory, backed up by no one, so don’t take my work implicitly.
Assuming all the light waves came from a perfectly centralized point, I don’t think there would be any interference, unless the reflected light interfered with itself. This would depend on how the phase angle changed during reflection, and I think the phase always changes by 0 or 90 degrees. So either you’d get complete cancellation, or no cancellation. Assuming that there was no way for energy to escape, that would mean that with no cancellation the inside would get brighter and brighter. You’d have a “standing wave” effect. And when you turned off the light, the reflection would continue until the light would escape. I don’t think that a color shift would occur, if the sphere was purely reflective and not refractive. [who] J C