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| Mad Scientists Science and Mathematics discussion-- theories, arguments, citations, proofs and pudding. |
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#1
 2006-03-05, 22:09 |
iown 
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 So, your in a room........
Your in a room, with one flashlight. This room has 4 walls, a ceiling, and a floor. No point in this room can anything escape. It is a big enough room and has enough oxygen in it to keep you alive for say, 5 days. The walls, floor and ceiling are all made of a solid that absorbs no light AT ALL. You turn the flashlight on, and go to sleep. Once you wake up, is the room still dark, or is there light in it?
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#2
2006-03-05, 23:11 |
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If she's easy, take'r twice.
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Re: So, your in a room........
could you elaborate on the construction of this room? it doesnt absorb light? are you trying to see if the light will bounce back and forth in infinity, making a permanent light source?
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#3
2006-03-05, 23:16 |
iown
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Re: So, your in a room........
yea. nothing much to elaborate on. 4 wall room , ceiling, floor. Oh yeah and once you wake up the flashlights batteries have gone dead.
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#4
2006-03-06, 00:11 |
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Re: So, your in a room........
He's trying to say, would the light keep bouncing off the walls, and stay lit, or what would happen to it eventually.
Another question, lets say yuoure in a room with mirrors or white walls. What happens to the light, since it just keeps getting reflected? I'm guessing the matter inside (you, air, etc) would eventually absorb it.
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#5
2006-03-06, 03:14 |
xXPhoenixFireXx
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Re: So, your in a room........
Your body, and the flashlight would absorb the light.
Given that 2 D-cell batteries ~ 32000 Joules
Now taking the weight of a human to be 80Kg or 80000g, and approximating the specific heat of a person to be the same as that of water, 4.185J/g/C,
Your body would be heated by an extra 0.095579 degrees Celcius.
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#6
2006-03-06, 03:26 |
10 elevenths
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Re: So, your in a room........
quote:
Originally posted by xXPhoenixFireXx:
Your body, and the flashlight would absorb the light.
Given that 2 D-cell batteries ~ 32000 Joules
Now taking the weight of a human to be 80Kg or 80000g, and approximating the specific heat of a person to be the same as that of water, 4.185J/g/C,
Your body would be heated by an extra 0.095579 degrees Celcius.
Hahaha, cute. I was going to give the same reply, but I wouldn't have thought about calculating the temperature change. |
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#7
2006-03-06, 22:16 |
MadMaster
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Re: So, your in a room........
I've had the same ideas on two different instance way back when. Like when I was eight or something.
Two mirrors and reflect the light off of each other (Answered above)
And a light powered by solar power pointing at it's solar panel. I would think that the light is putting out more energy then it's taking in but what if you could enhance the light with a mirrored shield that directs the light at the solar panel?
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#8
2006-03-06, 22:22 |
iown
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Re: So, your in a room........
yea, i figured that your body and the flashlight itself would absorb the light. so what if its the same scenario, but no flashlight, and your not in the room. say theres a door and you open the door and close it really fast to where light gets trapped in there with nothing to absorb it. Now, if you broke a hole in the wall really fast would a flash of light come out. I think ive heard this somewhere like a year ago that light would jolt out.
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#9
2006-03-06, 22:46 |
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Re: So, your in a room........
the light would still get absorbed by the walls, nothing can refelect light completly because it acts as both a particle and a wave. Even mirrors absorb some light, and since light moves so fast you cant just open the door and close it really fast. Basically when the source goes out, the light from it is gone.
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#10
2006-03-07, 01:27 |
iown
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Re: So, your in a room........
Exbzurg, i said that the walls are made of a solid that will not absorb any light at all... i know that mirrors absorb some light, thats why i didnt say mirrors, im thinking hypothetical here.
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#11
2006-03-07, 01:38 |
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Land of the Ires.
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Re: So, your in a room........
quote:
Originally posted by iown:
Exbzurg, i said that the walls are made of a solid that will not absorb any light at all... i know that mirrors absorb some light, thats why i didnt say mirrors, im thinking hypothetical here.
Exbzurg just has to be a dick. Plus his explanation makes like zero sense. I think this room would give you a bad ass headache. Ever been in Armagh Planetarium. They have two mirrors facing each other, so you see yourself about 200 times. pretty...lame, but also annoying as hell. I'd turn the light off. And what about water in this hypothetical room? |
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#12
2006-03-07, 02:05 |
iown
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Re: So, your in a room........
water???
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#13
2006-03-07, 02:13 |
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Land of the Ires.
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Re: So, your in a room........
quote:
Originally posted by iown:
water???
Water. in. out. You have oxygen for 5 days (what about CO2 buildup) but you will probably be dead by then from dehydration. This post is a joke btw, you don't need to take it seriously. |
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#14
2006-03-07, 04:03 |
Quageschi
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Re: So, your in a room........
Phoenix said it: your body and the flashlight would absorb the light in a matter of milliseconds from the time that the flashlight died. Unless some photons managed to get in to a perfectly verticle or horizontal path, that wasnt interupted by you. But you wouldnt know, and wouldnt be able to know, that that light is still being reflected.
Now say that you were able to spawn some moving photons in this room somehow, then they would bounce around forever, assuming that these photons lost no energy when being reflected of the walls made of this theoretical material. But like the perfecty verticle or horizontal moving photons thats i mentioned above, there would be no way to know that those photons are still trapped in there, it
could only be proven mathmaticaly
please correct me if im wrong on any of this
Edit: me being a lazy ass didnt read all the posts and see that you asked a new question, but whatever
[This message has been edited by Quageschi (edited 03-07-2006).]
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#15
2006-03-07, 04:12 |
10 elevenths
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Re: So, your in a room........
Well I was going to post my own thought experiment on the subject but I wrote and re-wrote it so many times I dont care anymore.
Shine a light in a perfectly reflecting room, and close the door (asume the room is big enough that some of the light got trapped in the room). When you open the door, you would see light. It would appear very dim though, and would not last long. Remember being able to see one of the walls means light is reflecting off that wall. Since there is only the light inside the room that we will assume we are observing, this light would be spread out quite a lot, so it would be photons bouncing along the inside of the room, with only some stray ones hitting you and your eyes.
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#16
2006-03-07, 21:24 |
iown
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Re: So, your in a room........
quote:
Originally posted by Issue313:
Water. in. out. You have oxygen for 5 days (what about CO2 buildup) but you will probably be dead by then from dehydration.
This post is a joke btw, you don't need to take it seriously.
i see what you mean by the water now, and who said i was takin it seriously? Just wanted to know what the results of this would be. |
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#17
2006-03-07, 21:47 |
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Re: So, your in a room........
sorry if i came off as sounding like a dick, b ut what i meant is that because light acts like a wave as well as a particle then nothing can reflect it perfectly. (look up wave physics but heres a summary,)
Waves are basically the transfer of energy by one particle hitting another particle which hits another particle in a predictable pattern. Wehn light travels it acts sort of like waves in the way it causes particles to be bumped a certain way. It also acts like a particle because it can be reflected off of other particles instead of continuing the wave. Its kinda complicated to explain,, just google light/wave physics, because I suck at explaining this apparently.
And like said berfore the light moves so fast that by the time the source goes out the light is gone one way or another. Like explained by an above poster it only takes milliseconds(proablly shorter) for it to be completly absorbed.
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#18
2006-03-08, 00:47 |
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Re: So, your in a room........
Came up with another idea why it wouldn't work. The air would help absorb and negate the light as well.
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#19
2006-03-08, 15:02 |
10 elevenths
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Re: So, your in a room........
quote:
Originally posted by Exbzurg:
Came up with another idea why it wouldn't work. The air would help absorb and negate the light as well.
This is a thought experiment, in which we are using a simplified universe in order to clarify our understanding of something else. How light interacts with air is quite irrelevent for a thought experiment. As is pointing out nothing is perfectly reflective. Great, ok, we know we wont actually do this crazy experiment, which is why we are just thinking about it. |
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#20
2006-03-08, 18:16 |
Master Shake
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Re: So, your in a room........
Correct me if im wrong, but is infrared not light, and your body would put out heat(infrared). So I say yes, there would still be light.
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#21
2006-03-08, 21:25 |
xXPhoenixFireXx
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Re: So, your in a room........
Fine be a smartass, yes there would be infrared light.
Nice catch.
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#22
2006-03-09, 02:46 |
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Re: So, your in a room........
yeah but you can't normally see infrared light.
And earlier when it was said that this was a though experiment, i already knew that. Im just saying that it won't work. Part of the scientific method is a hypothesis, and a conclusion. You thought something would happen, and i disproved it(imo) with evidence(again imo), thus coming to the conclusion that the though experiment failed without doing it. No need to get mad just because some one presents evidence that proves or disproves something.
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#23
2006-03-09, 22:55 |
adam_777
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Re: So, your in a room........
Interesting thread.
I think that assuming none of the light was absorbed (By the walls/ceiling/air/anything else) then there would be light.
I also had the thought about the solar powered light powering its own solar panel...
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#24
2006-03-10, 03:35 |
xXPhoenixFireXx
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Re: So, your in a room........
Well if no light was absorbed you wouldn't be able to see anything.
However, if you just had a light source siting there for a while all the flashlight light would be concentrated into a short burst that would probably blind you upon looking inside.
Anyway I saw this movie about some diamond like substance that absorbed light, but once absorbed 100% efficiently kept it reflecting around inside. The sucker was about as potent as a nuclear bomb. Too bad it's impossible, but a neat idea anyway.
[This message has been edited by xXPhoenixFireXx (edited 03-10-2006).]
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#25
2006-03-10, 19:46 |
MadMaster
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Re: So, your in a room........
quote:
Originally posted by MadMaster:
And a light powered by solar power pointing at it's solar panel. I would think that the light is putting out more energy then it's taking in but what if you could enhance the light with a mirrored shield that directs the light at the solar panel?
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#26
2006-03-10, 23:59 |
xXPhoenixFireXx
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Re: So, your in a room........
Solar panels are only about 30% efficient.
Even a 100% panel will still loose energy as heat in the light bulb, and connecting wires.
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#27
2006-03-11, 03:54 |
zebra head
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Re: So, your in a room........
Eh, probably been answered but no matter the means of channeling movement of energy requires energy expendature... so... unless it's a perfect vacuum, and most likely a perfect sphere, and you're molded perfectly into the wall... No, there won't be light.
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#28
2006-03-11, 05:05 |
10 elevenths
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Re: So, your in a room........
quote:
Originally posted by zebra head:
Eh, probably been answered but no matter the means of channeling movement of energy requires energy expendature... so... unless it's a perfect vacuum, and most likely a perfect sphere, and you're molded perfectly into the wall... No, there won't be light.
Read the other responses to see why you're wrong. |
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#29
2006-03-12, 09:09 |
BoilingLeadBath
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Re: So, your in a room........
What if you take a peice of hypothetical fiberoptic cable, and make it into a shape like a 6?
Light goes in the top, and round and round the bottom... right?
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#30
2006-03-12, 13:03 |
xXPhoenixFireXx
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Re: So, your in a room........
Fiberoptic cables aren't 100% efficient.
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#31
2006-03-15, 00:35 |
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Re: So, your in a room........
quote:
Originally posted by xXPhoenixFireXx:
Anyway I saw this movie about some diamond like substance that absorbed light, but once absorbed 100% efficiently kept it reflecting around inside. The sucker was about as potent as a nuclear bomb. Too bad it's impossible, but a neat idea anyway.
They use some sort of quartz to trap photons in quantum computers. |
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#32
2006-03-15, 07:11 |
xXPhoenixFireXx
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Re: So, your in a room........
Those would have a limit to the number of photons they could trap though. Probably a very small amount.
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#33
2006-03-19, 06:35 |
sandman235
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Re: So, your in a room........
Interesting thought.
Now physics isnt my area of expertise, but light, and other energy is dictated (or at least we assume it is) by the particle-wave duality theory, meaning light exists as both a wave and a bundle of packet-like photons. Assuming these photons, like all other particles, required an expenditure to remain in motion; one can conclude that there would have to be an entropic cost, thus eventually depleting the ability of the particles to do work/remain in motion.
Please correct me if i have abridged any key principles or factors.
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#34
2006-03-19, 18:44 |
10 elevenths
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Re: So, your in a room........
quote:
Originally posted by sandman235:
Interesting thought.
Now physics isnt my area of expertise, but light, and other energy is dictated (or at least we assume it is) by the particle-wave duality theory, meaning light exists as both a wave and a bundle of packet-like photons. Assuming these photons, like all other particles, required an expenditure to remain in motion; one can conclude that there would have to be an entropic cost, thus eventually depleting the ability of the particles to do work/remain in motion.
Please correct me if i have abridged any key principles or factors.
Since when do any particles require an expenditure or anything to stay in motion? This is straight Newton's First law; which states that an object will move with a constant velocity unless a force is exerted on it. |
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So, your in a room........