Too much thinking result in this....

Was on the toilet :toilet: when I started thinking and wow I just flew away in my dreams... Here my question.

If you have a sphere made of a "one-way mirror" (a mirror you can see into, and on the other side there are just reflection) If we would be able to make it 100% reflective and with no leakage and pointed a laser into it. Would the light stay there until you crush the ball?

And how would it look if you just looked into it without and lights, what would you see? I know that it must be a light source to see anything but I think you understand what I mean.

Mirrors are not 100% efficient so some of the light would be adsorbed as heat, the light would not stay in the ball until crushed.

Thats why I said 100% reflective and ofc I know this isn't practicable possible.

Was just thinking theoretically, would the light be there then?

Wos said:

Thats why I said 100% reflective and ofc I know this isn't practicable possible.

Was just thinking theoretically, would the light be there then?

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Whoops missed that part. My bad. I have no idea what would happen then, I assume the light would stay in the ball but I really have no idea.

ARGLaser said:

Whoops missed that part. My bad. I have no idea what would happen then, I assume the light would stay in the ball but I really have no idea.

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Even the most experienced make mistakes :beer:

Well, yes, but the first parameter isn't possible, so the point is moot. Sorta like asking "If a machine was 101% efficient, would it give free energy?"

As for the "color," what you're describing is similar to a black hole since light can get in and no light can get out. It would look black.

Yes we would see it black... how couldnt I think of that. But then again say that this 100% effecient was possible, would the light come out in a focused beam? Lets say that I have this sphere with "laserlight" in a dark room then drop it to the ground, would it just be a superfast flash from it, or would it be a tiny bit of the beam coming out? Does that depend on the diverange?

What many people dont realize is that a "one way mirror" does not exist. "One way mirror" is really just a partial mirror. The lights are darker on one side, so the partial reflection of light from the bright room is brighter the the small amount of light transmitted through from the dark room. Turn on the lights in the dark room and you can see through it from both sides. Get really close to one and block the light with your hand. You can see right through it.

I believe the beam would be bent and warped from bouncing around billions of times and due to divergence (assuming 100% perfection in the inner surface of the sphere) it would expand and eventually fill the sphere evenly as would say a gas. The sphere would also have to be a perfect vacuum otherwise the light hitting the gas molecules would create heat even if hitting the sides of the sphere didn't create heat. So breaking the sphere in belief would cause a quick burst of even light every direction only being altered by the way the sphere itself breaks.

And yes, literally impossible because of the lack of true one-way mirrors.

My theory

Heh, I had a similar question in 8th grade, although mine was based on a slightly different "what if" scenario, the end result was that I drew a poster on was called a light grenade.

We were allowed a lot of leeway with reality on this mini project....

Specifically, what if you were able to channel light inside a perfect sphere, which does reflect 100% back, and were able to seal the sphere before the light could bounce back out. By also altering the angle at which the light enters, and using a powerful enough laser (fiction remember...) you could store an unlimited amount of energy no?

It would not be a focused beam. The moment you poked a hole in the sphere, all of the inside area would become an "emitter" of sorts.

InfinitusEquitas said:

you could store an unlimited amount of energy no?

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No. The light would heat the air. Even if there's a vacuum, there can't be a perfect vacuum. And even if you could get a perfect vacuum, there are particles that pop into and out of existence.

Cyparagon said:

And even if you could get a perfect vacuum, there are particles that pop into and out of existence.

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FML... quantum mechanics really suck sometimes :tinfoil:

madmacmo said:

Meh . . . Been there, done that already

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Fine until it's dark and you need a light inside the box

And yes, theoretically if you had a 100% interally reflective sphere under a total vacuum with absolutely no contamination or other particles, the light would stay in there infinitely until given any escape.

What you propose is of course, not possible.
However, assuming you do have a one-way mirror that is 100% reflective on the inside, and at least partially transparent on the outside, you probably would not be able to store energy in it. You would not see it either, it would appear as an absence of light.

Such a device, if used in an area where any ambient light exists, would then proceed to absorb all of the photons which hit it. If the ball contained air, it would eventually become so ridiculously hot from all the heating of the air from the light that it would melt. If the ball contained a 100% vacuum (also not particularly possible). You COULD use it to store energy, but it would likely cause an incredibly large explosion once you broke it open, if you allowed it to collect light for any lengthy period of time. Assuming you built this in outer-space, which is not a 100% vacuum (although quite close), you would reach a critical point at which one of several things could occur.
1. Fusion of any particles that get trapped in the ball.
2. Anti matter is created.
3. The fabric of the universe within that ball is changed in some incomprehensible way, possibly resulting in a black hole or a worm hole.

The ball would likely melt before any of those things happened though.

Back to your original question, if the ball ONLY had a laser shone on it, it was 100% reflective no the inside and transparent on the outside, it would appear completely dark (although that wouldn't matter, because no other light would be going into it, so you wouldn't know the difference). You would simply see your laser beam stop where the ball was. If you shone the laser on it for too long, any of the aforementioned things would happen. In order for it to store energy, it would have to consist of a nearly total or total vacuum. When you broke it open, difuse laser radiation would shine in the direction of where the structure first failed (the beam structure would be eliminated by the curved surfaces it would be reflecting upon).

However, everything about this situation is pretty much impossible, because in order for it to be 100% reflective on the inside, it must also be 100% reflective on the outside.

Maybe i've been thinking too much too!

AAlasers

If you put a light bulb in a sealed box and turn it on, would it fill up with light until it couldn't hold any more?

No, your box would become a star of its own but due to instabilities it would die quickly and supernova. Thus destroying the whole solar system. So never ever put a light in a sealed box.