Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL


Subject: Semi OT - and you won't thank me for this - mirrors are seriously weird

SamTherapy opened this issue on Dec 27, 2009 ยท 81 posts


kawecki posted Sat, 02 January 2010 at 2:38 AM

More fun with mirrors.
A photon has a momentum P = m.c. When a photon hit a mirror the photon is reflected, what happens with the momentum?
As the speed of light is always the same the magnitude of the momentum remain the same, but momentum is a vector and the direction was changed when reflected, so the vector momentum has changed.
A Newton's principle tell us that force is the change of momentun per unit time F = dp/dt.
The consequence of all this is when photons hit a mirror it appears a force at the mirror's surface, the mirror is stoned by photons!

Some colateral effects:
We trigger a very powerful Regan's Star War laser to destroy and incoming Persian ICBM or if you prefer a Korean one. The laser beam hit a space satellite reflector to be reflected exactly to where is the missile. You can use several ground lasers for increase the power of the destructive beam.
What happens? The laser beam hit the mirror, the beams are reflected toward the target, photons hit the mirror, a reaction force appears in the satellite mirror and the satellite is put out of orbit, more powerful the laser more the satellite goes to who knows where.
In resume, all these Star War's gizmo works only for one shot, don't miss the only one opportunity you have and of course, against only one missile......

Stupidity also evolves!