The reflection tag has no wiki summary.
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Free Optics Simulation Programs
I'm having an extremely difficult time finding an optics program that is easy to use and offers accurate physics simulations. I'm not asking for much, I just want to be able to simulate a laser going ...
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Redirecting light beams from beam splitters
I'm doing a project where I am taking a laser beam and sending it through a beam splitter. As I understand, approximately 50% of the light will go pass through and 50% will be reflected. So this means ...
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What about the photons that make you see ? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What determines color — wavelength or frequency?
Explanation about black color, and hence color
I understand that what we see are the reflected light from other ...
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Refraction, reflection, and what is total reflection?
So if light travels from one media to another with a different refraction index, what may happen happen? Refraction, reflection or total reflection? I am quite confused as to the differences between ...
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EM-wave hits a brick-wall, $\pi/2$ -phase-shift? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Phase shift of 180 degrees on reflection from optically denser medium
If I have a cord-wave, I get a phase-shift with attached cord but do I get such a phase-shift with ...
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What is the color of a mirror?
Ok, a mirror couldn't be white, as then you wouldn't be able to see your reflection so clearly. It wouldn't be transparent, as that then won't reflect.
So what color is it?
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Why does your reflection stay the same size when you move further away from the mirror?
This was an experiment I saw in my son's workbook. It said to mark out the top of your forehead and the bottom of your chin on a mirror using a whiteboard marker. Then slowly move backwards, and ...
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498 views
Why does your reflection suddenly turn upside down while slowly walking away from a curved mirror?
Many people should have realised, when looking into a concave curved mirror (or even a rather reflective spoon in that fact) at a close distance, you will see a slightly distorted reflection. But as ...
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How can one prove that the number of images formed by the reflecting surfaces of two plane mirrors at right angles to each other is 3?
How can one prove that the number of images formed by two plane mirrors at right angles to each other is 3?
Is there a mathematical proof for the same ?
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What happens when a photon hits a mirror?
When a photon of light hits a mirror does the exact same photon of light bounce back or is it absorbed then one with the same properties emitted? If the same one is bounced back does it's velocity ...
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Reflection of Electromagnetic Waves
Visible light - Being an Electromagnetic wave is reflected by glass (take mirror). Would all other waves in the electromagnetic spectrum be reflected in the same way by our simple mirror... For highly ...
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1answer
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What IS reflection?
How does quantum electrodynamics actually explain HOW reflection occurs on a microscopic scale?
Note that Feynman's QED lecture series/book is not sufficient, as he only assumes that light DOES ...
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1answer
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What are the properties of the partially polarized light on refraction?
When a ray of ordinary light is passed on the surface of the water the reflected light will be completely polarized( vibrations in one plane).
My question is what will be plane of vibration in the ...
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1answer
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Rotating mirror - Foucault's measurement of light speed
Some time ago I came across a secondary web source on measurement of light speed in water made by Foucault around 1850. I append its redrawn scheme below (light is reflected from the rotating mirror ...
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2answers
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How do mirrors work?
Apparently, light is just a certain wavelength, or "the visible spectrum" of electromagnetic waves. If I recall correctly, my physics teacher explained to me that electromagnetic waves are basically ...
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How much of himself a person can see in the mirror? [closed]
A man who is $6$ ft tall is standing in front of a plane mirror that is $2$ ft in length. The mirror is placed lengthwise with its bottom edge $4$ ft above the floor on a wall that is $5$ ft ...
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Phase shift of 180 degrees on reflection from optically denser medium
Can anyone please provide an intuitive explanation of why phase shift of 180 degrees occurs in the Electric Field of a EM wave,when reflected from an optically denser medium?
I tried searching for it ...
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Reflection of transverse and longitudinal waves
Why is it that when a transverse wave is reflected from a 'rigid' surface, it undergoes a phase change of $\pi$ radians, whereas when a longitudinal wave is reflected from a rigid surface, it does not ...
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1answer
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Can Mirror box simulate long light travel?
Imagine that there is a cube box that has mirrors all 6 faces in . If we use a strong laser and enter in the box from a small hole on the box. The laser light travels in the box long time that we can ...
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At what angle does a single atom “reflect” a single photon?
Does this question make sense in the quantum world?
Imagining a single photon (wave packet?) interacting with a single atom (its electrons etc) how do we currently describe/define the emitted photon ...
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How to derive a multi-reflection echo from a given single-reflection “trace”
Consider a one-dimensional semi-bounded "ray" (or thin "cylinder") of stratum (or just any homogeneous substance) which has several "features" along it's length (say, thin films). Consider a wave that ...
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2answers
367 views
Eliminating IR light reflection perceived by a steep viewing angle
I am having a problem with reflection on an acrylic surface, in the IR part of the spectrum. This reflection is interfering with an algorithm that looks at objects, as it makes two show up when only ...
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1answer
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size and distance of mirror used in projected “smart” whiteboard
Apologies in advance for complete ignorance of optics (beyond conic sections)
How is the size, distance, and angle of the mirror used here calculated? The mirror is I believe the open flap in front ...
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What longest time ever was achieved at holding light in a closed volume?
For what longest possible time it was possible to hold light in a closed volume with mirrored walls?
I would be most interested for results with empty volume but results with solid-state volume may ...
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Why does a window become a mirror at night?
In day, when you look in the room through the window out, you can clearly see what happens outside. At night when it's dark outside but there's light inside you can look in the window but it becomes a ...
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3answers
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Electromagnetic wave reflection vs. light reflection
Related: x-ray interaction with atmosphere
I know that electromagnetic waves of particular frequencies reflect from the ionosphere. And the light (which from one perspective is an electromagnetic ...
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1answer
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Reflectance of Round Moon vs Flat Moon
Treating the moon as an ideal, bright Lambertian reflector, I was trying to compare its efficiency as a light source to an equally-sized flat sheet of drywall. It's pretty straightforward to set the ...
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1answer
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reflection, refraction and diffraction occur in radio waves, which one occurs the most?
One of the things about Radio waves is that they undergo different behaviors such as reflection, refraction and diffraction when in contact with obstacles such as walls, buildings etc. what i want to ...
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Is there a limit to the resolving power of a mirror telescope?
Like, if you flattened out Ceres to a 1 mm iron foil telescope mirror with 20x the surface area of the Sun, could you resolve details on the surface of an exoplanet? Could you make it arbitrarily ...
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2answers
334 views
What's it like in a sphere mirror? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What happens to light in a perfect reflective sphere?
I was working on my toy ray tracer when I pondered on this:
Say we build a hollow sphere big enough to fit a ...
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2answers
683 views
How to calculate the temperature of a receiving point from concentrated solar power?
I'm exploring a DIY project about solar power and found very little resources that can explain in a not too simple but not too advanced way how to go about calculating important values in solar power, ...
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2answers
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Light and parabola
I know that parallel light beams hitting a parabola will be focused at the focus of the parabola (f = 1/4a) and a light source at the focus of the parabola will ...
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3answers
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Reflection At Speed of Light
I have looked online to no avail. There is two competing answers and I am curious to know which one is right.
Someone asked me this question. If you are traveling at the speed of light can you see ...
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Modeling a spray painted polyurethane surface reflection
I'm modeling light interaction/reflection from a fiberglass surface with polyurethane epoxy (that is very reflective) that has been spray painted with a matte black paint. I'm looking for some input ...
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How to make mirrors give more authentic image of myself
My friend bought two normal mirrors from some shop probably IKEA, looking like this one:
My images are different from the two. One is a little fatter and shorter, and the other a little thinner and ...
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Distance of objects in car mirrors
We've all seen that label on our passenger side mirrors that says, "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear." Why is this? Further, why does it only apply to the passenger side mirror, and not ...
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Light Energy Absorption In Mirror
Let the amount of energy in one pulse of (laser) light be $E$, and the wavelength be $\lambda$.
This pulse goes straight to the mirror, and it is reflected by the mirror.
Let the reflectivity of ...
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What happens to light in a perfect reflective sphere?
Let's say you have the ability to shine some light into a perfectly round sphere and the sphere's interior surface was perfectly smooth and reflective and there was no way for the light to escape.
If ...
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How come an anti-reflective coating makes glass *more* transparent?
The book I'm reading about optics says that an anti-reflective film applied on glass* makes the glass more transparent, because the air→film and film→glass reflected waves (originated from a paraxial ...
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Why does light reflect more intensely when it hits a surface at a large angle?
I mean, what is happening at a microscopic level to cause this behavior? Here's what I got from Wikipedia:
On Reflection (physics)#Reflection of light it says that "solving Maxwell's equations for a ...
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How to apply Andreev reflection formalism to ferromagnet ,normal metal interface?
The traditional formalism for andreev reflection deals with what happens at normal metal, super conductor interface.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreev_reflection
(i.e when an electron from normal ...
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How do you calculate the intensity of light around the focal point from a focused collimated beam of light?
Problem/Purpose of me asking this question to you people who know more than me:
So I'm doing a science project where I'm collimating a beam of light to a focus point in a light medium (water vapor or ...
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1answer
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Polarization and mirrors
When a light beam reaches a dielectric surface, the incident and reflected beams have different intensities depending on polarization. For the so-called Brewster's angle, the reflected light is ...
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How long do reflections take?
How long does it take for a photon to be reflected? Starting with the photon being absorbed by some atom to the point it's reemitted?
And what's the same point with pressure waves, like sound?
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1answer
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How are these balls reflected after they hit each other? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Physics of simple collisions
I have 2 photos of the balls, one before the collision and one after the collision. They do a elastic collision. I want to know how is the ...
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5answers
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Focusing Light with Flat Mirrors
What is the best way to focus (sun)light using flat mirrors? My goal is to start a fire. Cutting the mirrors is easy.
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How does reflection work?
In Newton's model of light as being composed of particles, it's easy to imagine reflection as being the rebounding of individual corpuscles off a surface. However, since light can also behave like a ...
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1answer
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Why can't I see far when I look in a mirror?
I'm myopic.
It's a fact.
I understand exactly how it works because Internet told me light rays encounter themeselves too soon in my eyes... that is why I can't see far objects even if I see near ...
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Why can't my eye see itself in the mirror through polarizing 3D-glasses?
I found a pair of polarizing "3D glasses" lying around, and tried to look at myself in the mirror while wearing them.
To my utter confusion, when closing the left eye and only looking through the ...
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UV reflective surfaces
Do surfaces that reflect visible light efficiently also reflect UV light? If not, are there surfaces that do?
(I have a large array of UV LEDs that I need to make larger and more diffuse, so I'm ...

