Do mirrors have Power?

I will straight off admit I am primarily an intuiative human being, but I strive to understand.
Had a vision of a cute ok naked lady admiring herself in a room with one mirror to her left and one mirror to her right.
Her reflection is transported ? by light waves to each mirror almost simultaneously and instantly?
If this lady stood there for decades and the mirrors keep showing her reflection then how could this be?
One added part of the vision ....she never moves not an inch or fraction of.
Would say in a million years the image still get reflected on both mirrors ?...ignoring dust ect as a factor.
If so is this not strange?
It needs to be questioned from a certain angle , but perhaps this question may be the next breakthrough?

I am unsure if so, but not sure it is not.

What are you talking about?

If a naked lady stands dead still in front of two mirrors her reflection will not age?

Mirrors reflect what is in front of them... and yes it changes

My mirror has the power to mimic my appearance.

I've seen it doing that quite a few times when it thought I wasn't looking.

Scary as frack I tell ya.

Mirrors are spooky.

You never see your true self in a mirror.

Never sleep with your bed in front of a mirror.

If you are worried about seeing someone, alive or dead, do not look into a mirror.

Whilst I appreciate the humour, with all respect Iam asking a serious question.
But they do say people on '___' who look in mirrors see their past incarnations or demons who have posessed them.
George Harrison talked about this.
However i was coming from a straight down the line physics angle.
The Op needs deep pondering, its not a light question.

reply to post by Dr Expired


I am trying to help you, Dr,

But I don't know more than I have said.

Originally posted by catwhoknowsplusone
reply to post by Dr Expired

 

I am trying to help you, Dr,

But I don't know more than I have said.

mmm ok i will meditate on your reply .

Originally posted by Dr Expired
Would say in a million years the image still get reflected on both mirrors ?...ignoring dust ect as a factor.
If so is this not strange?

Mirrors don't reflect that well. Even if you get 99% reflection you're down to 1% after 100 reflections.

Look at how fast these infinity mirrors fade out:

lightenergystudio.com...

That link actually shows what happens to a reflection of a reflection. It gets smaller as it goes off into infinity, like anything else you look at over a long distance. Because the distance isn't just the distance between the mirrors, the distance gets larger every time it reflects.

And the naked lady won't be as cute in a million years. not even in 100 years! and she'd probably need some sleep after a day, so she couldn't stand there for decades.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

So you are saying mirrors degrade a static relection? with the passing of time?

reply to post by Dr Expired


Explanation: S&F!

I sourced this from my personal copy of "Physics" 5th edition by Giancoli page 834...

When a photon passes through matter, it interacts with the atoms and electrons. There are four important types of interactions that a photon can undergo:

1. The photon can be scattered off an electron [or a nucleus] and in the process lose some energy; this is the Compton effect. But notice that the photon is not slowed down. It still travels with speed c, but its frequency will be lower.
   
2. The photoelectric effect: a photon may knock an electron out of an atom and in the process itself disappear.
   
3. The photon may knock an atomic electron into a higher energy state in the atom if its energy is not sufficient to knock the electron out altogether. In this process the electron also disappears, and all its en energy is given to the atom. Such an atom is then said to be in an excited state, and we shall discuss this more later.
   
4. Pair production: A photon can actually create matter, such as the production of an electron and a positron. [A positron has the same mass as an electron, but the opposite charge, + e ]
   

Compton scattering [wiki]

Photoelectric effect [wiki]

Excited state [wiki]

Pair production [wiki]

Yes .. Mirrors have power on several levels.

1stly e=mc^2 so at the base level of existence .. its made of energy!

Mass–energy equivalence [wiki]

2ndly Mirrors come in several shapes and sizes and in astronomy and microscopy they certainly are rated in resolving power.

Mirror [wiki]

Effects: See also: Mirror image and Specular reflection
Shape of a mirror's surfaceA beam of light reflects off a mirror at an angle of reflection equal to its angle of incidence (if the size of a mirror is much larger than the wavelength of light). That is, if the beam of light is shining on a mirror's surface at a θ° angle vertically, then it reflects from the point of incidence at a θ° angle from vertically in the opposite direction. This law mathematically follows from the interference of a plane wave on a flat boundary (of much larger size than the wavelength).

In a plane mirror, a parallel beam of light changes its direction as a whole, while still remaining parallel; the images formed by a plane mirror are virtual images, of the same size as the original object (see mirror image).
In a concave mirror, parallel beams of light becomes a convergent beam, whose rays intersect in the focus of the mirror.

In a convex mirror, parallel beams become divergent, with the rays appearing to diverge from a common point of intersection "behind" the mirror.

Spherical concave and convex mirrors do not focus parallel rays to a single point due to spherical aberration. However, the ideal of focusing to a point is a commonly-used approximation. Parabolic reflectors resolve this, allowing incoming parallel rays (for example, light from a distant star) to be focused to a small spot; almost an ideal point. Parabolic reflectors are not suitable for imaging nearby objects because the light rays are not parallel.

Mirror image; If one looks in a mirror, one's image reverses (e.g., if one raises one's right hand, his left hand will appear to go up in the mirror.)

Face-to-face mirrorsTwo or more mirrors placed exactly face to face give the appearance of an infinite regress. Some devices use this to generate multiple reflections:

Fabry–Pérot interferometer
Laser (which contains an optical cavity)
some types of catoptric cistula
momentum-enhanced solar sail

Active mirrors are mirrors that amplify the light they reflect. They are used to make disk lasers. The amplification is typically over a narrow range of wavelengths, and requires an external source of power.

Primary mirror (astronomy) [wiki]

Segmented mirror configurations are used to get around the size limitation on single primary mirrors. For example, the Giant Magellan Telescope will have seven 8.4 meter primary mirrors, with the resolving power equivalent to a 24.5 m (80.4 ft) optical aperture.

The Resolving Power (by Michael E. Valdez) [home.mchsi.com]

The resolving power is defined as the minimum angle two stars of equal magnitude should have for us to be able see them as separate stars. The resolving power also affects observation of the Sun, the Moon and the planets. In this case, the resolving power of our telescope determines how small a detail we can see on the sunspots, on the surface of the Moon or on the surface of a planet. This is also true for galaxies, star groups, comets, asteroids, etc. The resolving power of the telescope affects practically every mode of operation. We need to study what we call resolving power.

And finally at the subatomic level there is the quantum mechanics technical details of that ...

Compton effect [wiki]

If the photon is of lower energy, but still has sufficient energy (in general a few eV to a few KeV, corresponding to visible light through soft X-rays), it can eject an electron from its host atom entirely (a process known as the photoelectric effect), instead of undergoing Compton scattering. Higher energy photons (1.022 MeV and above) may be able to bombard the nucleus and cause an electron and a positron to be formed, a process called pair production.

Photoelectric effect [wiki]

In the photoelectric effect, electrons are emitted from matter (metals and non-metallic solids, liquids or gases) as a consequence of their absorption of energy from electromagnetic radiation of very short wavelength, such as visible or ultraviolet light. Electrons emitted in this manner may be referred to as "photoelectrons". First observed by Heinrich Hertz in 1887, the phenomenon is also known as the "Hertz effect", although the latter term has fallen out of general use. Hertz observed and then showed that electrodes illuminated with ultraviolet light create electric sparks more easily.

The photoelectric effect requires photons with energies from a few electronvolts to over 1 MeV in high atomic number elements. Study of the photoelectric effect led to important steps in understanding the quantum nature of light and electrons and influenced the formation of the concept of wave–particle duality. Other phenomena where light affects the movement of electric charges include the photoconductive effect (also known as photoconductivity or photoresistivity), the photovoltaic effect, and the photoelectrochemical effect.

Emission mechanismThe photons of a light beam have a characteristic energy determined by the frequency of the light. In the photoemission process, if an electron within some material absorbs the energy of one photon and thus has more energy than the work function (the electron binding energy) of the material, it is ejected. If the photon energy is too low, the electron is unable to escape the material. Increasing the intensity of the light beam increases the number of photons in the light beam, and thus increases the number of electrons excited, but does not increase the energy that each electron possesses. The energy of the emitted electrons does not depend on the intensity of the incoming light, but only on the energy or frequency of the individual photons. It is an interaction between the incident photon and the outermost electron.

Electrons can absorb energy from photons when irradiated, but they usually follow an "all or nothing" principle. All of the energy from one photon must be absorbed and used to liberate one electron from atomic binding, or else the energy is re-emitted. If the photon energy is absorbed, some of the energy liberates the electron from the atom, and the rest contributes to the electron's kinetic energy as a free particle.

Personal Disclosure: If one could do what the OP is talking about in the sense the way it was discribed.. then you could permanantly store any captured light in a internally mirrored box forever!

Yeah they will suck your brains out.

reply to post by OmegaLogos


Wow what a detailed and earnestl response which has my mind reeling .

About to go outside into the space ...and look up into the outer, through the eight inch dobsonian reflector scope, if I can stop drinking this dammned scotch and staying on ATS.

My dog is staring at me intently, as I tap the keyboard, she wants outside, dam its cold out there an dthe mirror takes time?

Photons (and indeed any energitic particles) contain a HUGE amount of information, also they are in great density.

I have a pair of 25x100 giant bino's (Binoculars) and I can see a FOV of 44m at 1000m (1 km - 0.62 miles).

I look out the window and I can not even see what I saw through the binos.

Even more with a bigger aperture / zoom scope.

Originally posted by Dr Expired
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

So you are saying mirrors degrade a static relection? with the passing of time?

I have no idea what you mean by "static reflection", but it sounds to me like you're making up something that doesn't exist. It's never static. Ever.

The reason is photons travel at the speed of light. They aren't static.

Regarding degradation, did you look at the infinity mirrors in the link I posted? The pictures there should be pretty self explanatory, and it's not time that's the main issue there. The reflections degrade with each additional reflection.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by Dr Expired
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

So you are saying mirrors degrade a static relection? with the passing of time?

I have no idea what you mean by "static reflection", but it sounds to me like you're making up something that doesn't exist. It's never static. Ever.

The reason is photons travel at the speed of light. They aren't static.

Regarding degradation, did you look at the infinity mirrors in the link I posted? The pictures there should be pretty self explanatory, and it's not time that's the main issue there. The reflections degrade with each additional reflection.

Degrade I doubt, but scatter, most probably and thus not reflected into the other mirror

if the light is just bouncing back and forth between the two mirrors, why does she even need to remain standing there? she does because the image is constantly updating with fresh light

reply to post by Dr Expired

Ever shined a flashlight outside at night and noticed how the beam doesn't light up things further away because it's not strong enough? My guess is it's somehow getting diffused. Light can get (or will get) absorbed into the molecules in the mirror and in the air, eventually. In other words, it slowly fades away until there's no light to reflect. It's not infinite because its energy is conserved. I'm not sure if light can be 100% reflected. I'm pretty sure some amount of it gets absorbed into the mirror. What happens if this is in a vacuum and the reflective material is extremely efficient at reflecting? I'm not sure. Ask a physicist or something.

Bottom line: light doesn't have infinite energy. It gets absorbed even in outer space because the vacuum of space is not a perfect vacuum. Distant objects are increasingly difficult to see.

I do remember reading an article about some guy that was making something. He said he was inspired by two mirrors reflecting on each-other almost to infinity. I can't recall what the article was about, though.

I am kind of myself inspired by the idea that at the quantum scale particles are entangled. I wonder if all of reality is like two mirrors infinitely reflecting on eachother... I do sometimes wonder about the fractal nature of some things in nature. Self-similar things, etc.

To be honest I believe mirrors do have something strange going on. The few OBE's I have had where I looked into a mirror brought about weird results. In an OBE it is like looking into another realm and has extra dimensions as in more than 3D. Also if I see my body it often appears to be moving like a flame though not the colour or anything. I do believe mirrors have something to them though I think it is due to looking back at yourself which causes some kind of altered perception.