The "mirror box"

[Dyze]

Hi there,
so, this one day I was sitting in class, bored, and developed this idea in my head. It fits best in here, although there might be a bit Tilted Paranoia in it.

Imagine you have a box, or maybe better some kind of ball. Suppose it is completely and perfectly mirrored on the inside, so that a ray of light never gets interrupted. You see where that leads? Alright, suppose you manage to put a source of light in there, like a flash. Since this is only theoretical, whatever creates the flash disapperars at the same moment, so that no obstacle is left in the space. Oh, and add a perfect vacuum in there, too.

So, if you manage to open that thing couple 100 (1000...1000000...1000000)
hours (days...months....years) later, what would happen?
Massive explosion or something cool? Unbelievable bright beem of light that would tell every single alien in the universe that we are there? Just the amount of light that was put in there in the beginning? Nothing???
Please enlighten me!

[the_marq]

You might get some ideas here:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=63621

[Dyze]

thanks, did a search but couldn't find that...

[BoltedDown]

The light will probably turn to heat as it bounces around, so I would venture to guess that after a short while, it will be gone.

But then again... i'm not a physics major... just a computer nerd...

-BD

[Slavakion]

If (and only if) the mirror is perfect (meaning, it reflects 100% of light), it would look the same 100 years later. I think.

An increase of light would imply that some energy has been added, so that's out unless your mirror is the kind that chemically reacts with sunlight. In the real world, the light would bounce around for a while, losing energy as heat to the imperfect mirror.

[bal8664]

Should be called "the mirror sphere" much catchier name and more correct

[d*d]

Try this thread from philosophy
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=74836