Saturday, February 23, 2008

Interesting "infinity" fact.

If you hold two mirrors facing each other, would there be an infinite number of reflections?
While reading "The Infinite Book" - by John D. Barrow, I came across this fact that there wouldn't be an infinite reflections. Reason one is that the mirrors are not perfect and that the air between the mirrors diminish the light at each reflection.

However, even if the mirrors are perfect and the mirrors are in vacuum, there wouldn't be infinite reflections as the speed of light is finite. It would take an infinite amount of time for infinite reflections to be realized.

This fact was so simple yet something that most do not think about. I think it's quite fascinating.

1 comment:

broca's area said...

"which is easy to see is easy to miss"