Crosswords1 min ago
Light and mirrors
If i had a perfectly spherical mirror with the mirror on the inside (assume the mirror is perfectly reflective) and there was a light bulb inside,if the light was left on for a considerable time and then the sphere was broken. What would happen and what would we see?
Would it be like a 'light explosion'?
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If the mirror were perfectly reflective all the light and heat radiated by the bulb would bounce around inside the sphere until it got absorbed by something neither reflective nor transparent. Pretty soon, all the contents of the sphere would become white-hot and one of the components would fail as it melted. Could be the filament, glass bulb, electrical connections. If the sphere were smashed before overheating, it would not have stored any light older than a few billionths of a second.
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