Infinity: Reflections in two mirrors

itboffin

In that past I had assumed that if it were possible to stare directly head on into a mirror with an identical mirror positioned behind then the reflections would continue for infinity or at least until all the light became obscured by imperfections in the mirror, dust in the air etc. etc.

So how far do the reflections of two mirrors facing each other go?

SimonAH

At each reflection in real-world mirrors some light energy will be absorbed or scattered by imperfections. So the answer is "it depends on how good your mirrors are"

itboffin

SimonAH wrote:

At each reflection in real-world mirrors some light energy will be absorbed or scattered by imperfections. So the answer is "it depends on how good your mirrors are"

As i suspected, so this could be a good quality control test for mirrors?

Kieran_Burns

Only start worrying when one of the reflections waves back....

cornerblock

Not sure, I will have to look into it.

jzed

itboffin wrote:

In that past I had assumed that if it were possible to stare directly head on into a mirror with an identical mirror positioned behind then the reflections would continue for infinity or at least until all the light became obscured by imperfections in the mirror, dust in the air etc. etc.

So how far do the reflections of two mirrors facing each other go?

Staring into a mirror or a pint?

sketchley

itboffin

Are you trying to justify staring at yourself in the mirror all day?

CiB

The lifts in the Food Centre car park in Milton Keynes allow this experiment to be repeated at leisure; there are two answers:

One is that you don't see much as you can only see yourself; by definition you can't step out of your own eye-line to see round your own reflection; hence the answer is one.

Two: You can stare down the barrel of what should be an infinite number of reflections of your own kids (or someone else's but the parents tend to get a bit shirty if you stare for too long or too hard at them), and it maxes out at about <not that many surprisingly>. I put it down to the poor reflective qualities of the lifts' mirrors, and the lack of decent lighting.

Sorry. What was the question? It's a good one, certainly worthy of reflection.

tailwindhome

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Only start worrying when one of the reflections waves back....

I thought you CX types didn't have a reflection

Kieran_Burns

TailWindHome wrote:

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Only start worrying when one of the reflections waves back....

I thought you CX types didn't have a reflection

Foolish boy.

That's vampires.

We're WAY cooler than Vampires.

itboffin

to add some fuel to the fire, whilst sitting on the throne in our holiday house the reflection turned into a black rectangle after not many whatevers, now would that be because of my seated angle? the slightly green tint to the light? or something else?

SimonAH

That's where CX bikes come from 8)

_Brun_

Was this rectangle full of stars?

Initialised

There's a bunch of quantum physics equations that govern this but you can measure it as the efficiency of a laser cavity.

Jay dubbleU

itboffin wrote:

to add some fuel to the fire, whilst sitting on the throne in our holiday house the reflection turned into a black rectangle after not many whatevers, now would that be because of my seated angle? the slightly green tint to the light? or something else?

Never mind the waving - worry when you can see the back of your own head - especially that irritating bald patch 8)

Kieran_Burns

Jay dubbleU wrote:

itboffin wrote:

to add some fuel to the fire, whilst sitting on the throne in our holiday house the reflection turned into a black rectangle after not many whatevers, now would that be because of my seated angle? the slightly green tint to the light? or something else?

Never mind the waving - worry when you can see the back of your own head - especially that irritating bald patch 8)

That's your face

Jay dubbleU

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Jay dubbleU wrote:

itboffin wrote:

to add some fuel to the fire, whilst sitting on the throne in our holiday house the reflection turned into a black rectangle after not many whatevers, now would that be because of my seated angle? the slightly green tint to the light? or something else?

Never mind the waving - worry when you can see the back of your own head - especially that irritating bald patch 8)

That's your face