[img]http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/reflections-640x419.jpg[/img]
[quote]Physicists at MIT have created the first perfect mirror. When light hits the mirror — or indeed any other kind of wave, including acoustic and water waves – it bounces off perfectly, introducing no distortion and exactly preserving the original image (signal). While this is primarily big news for narcissistic MySpacers, these perfect mirrors could also lead to breakthroughs in solar power, lasers, fiber optic networks, or just about anything that involves the reflecting or capturing of light.[/quote]
[url=http://www.extremetech.com/computing/162322-mit-creates-the-first-perfect-mirror]Source[/url]
Holy shit, this is so useful.
The possibilities are infinite! Awesome.
Absolutely perfectly? Sounds kinda impossible, like one of those things that are 99.9999% but we'll say 100%.
Guess they'll know it better than me though.
Actually mirrors (or the glass covering them) are slightly green (like how when you do an "infinite mirror" thing it turns more green the further back the repeated reflection goes, and you can also see it in this picture), so there still is *some* distortion of the original image by color but it's so insignificant it doesn't matter.
Also doesn't matter if you end up not using glass to cover the mirror.
Otherwise this is really awesome.
Edit:
Waaaiit this doesn't seem to apply here
sorryyyyyyyy
[quote]a silicon wafer with a nanopatterned layer of silicon nitride on top — that had had holes drilled into it, forming a lattice.[/quote]
Would that be particularly expensive to mass produce?
Millions of people are going to realize how ugly they actually are are upon seeing themselves reflected perfectly for the first time
[QUOTE=SuperDuperScoot;41617284]Actually mirrors (or the glass covering them) are slightly green (like how when you do an "infinite mirror" thing it turns more green the further back the repeated reflection goes, and you can also see it in this picture), so there still is *some* distortion of the original image by color but it's so insignificant it doesn't matter.
Also doesn't matter if you end up not using glass to cover the mirror.
Otherwise this is really awesome.[/QUOTE]
The article says that the stuff they made reflects a certain wavelength of red light perfectly, as in all of the light returns, none of it is absorbed. The pic isn't very relevant.
[QUOTE=Colliseemoe;41617300]Would that be particularly expensive to mass produce?[/QUOTE]
Yes.
Light up a lamp in that room and enjoy an infinite lit room.
see if this were truly PERFECT 100% then you could put two facing eachother and create a rift to hell or something like that
that's how science works right
Wait so does this mean it does not reverse the reflection ?
[QUOTE=FinalHunter;41617332]Yeah I'm sure none of those people have ever seen a picture of themselves[/QUOTE]
astronomical amounts of not-getting-the-joke
[QUOTE=Desuh;41617323]Light up a lamp in that room and enjoy an infinite lit room.[/QUOTE]
But the lamp absorbs some of the light and thus you can't have infinite light
I think
We need the Facepunch science guy to inform us more on this.
Perfect until that new intern in the office accidentally knocks it over
[QUOTE=LittleBabyman;41617361]But the lamp absorbs some of the light and thus you can't have infinite light
I think[/QUOTE]
Simple.
Wrap the lamp in perfect mirrors.
[quote]While this is primarily big news for narcissistic MySpacers,[/quote]
I'm pretty sure this article is like a decade ol-
[quote]July 25, 2013[/quote]
Oh.
[QUOTE=Banhfunbags;41617381]We need the Facepunch science guy to inform us more on this.[/QUOTE]who's that then? JohnnyMo? aVoN?
[QUOTE=acds;41617262]Absolutely perfectly? Sounds kinda impossible, like one of those things that are 99.9999% but we'll say 100%.
Guess they'll know it better than me though.[/QUOTE]
If 0.9999 is 1 then 99.9999% is 100%.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;41617339]Wait so does this mean it does not reverse the reflection ?[/QUOTE]
For any reflection to be perfect it must be reversed as such.
Otherwise it's not a reflection.
Correct me if I am wrong, please. This isn't exactly my field of expert but I'm going off what I have been taught.
[QUOTE=Electrocuter;41617566]If 0.9999 is 1 then 99.9999% is 100%.[/QUOTE]
oh you that's only if the .9 repeats forever.
-snipped.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;41617339]Wait so does this mean it does not reverse the reflection ?[/QUOTE]
What
[QUOTE=Colliseemoe;41617300]Would that be particularly expensive to mass produce?[/QUOTE]
it would probably be on par with the cost of a microprocessor
Mirrors are our gateways into the past, aren't they? Or is that just windows?
[QUOTE=magravn;41617314]The article says that the stuff they made reflects a certain wavelength of red light perfectly, as in all of the light returns, none of it is absorbed. The pic isn't very relevant.[/QUOTE]
And this is why I wish we could post whole articles because going to the source makes Chrome flip the fuck out
[QUOTE=Colliseemoe;41617300]Would that be particularly expensive to mass produce?[/QUOTE]
Like any new technologly or tech that sounds way advance it'll probably be insanely expensive at the start, and keep going down until it reaches consumer pricing levels as production methods become more advanced, cheaper and simpler. That's how things usually go.
[QUOTE=slayer20;41618398]Mirrors are our gateways into the past, aren't they? Or is that just windows?[/QUOTE]
I like to think of them as a impassable portal to a alternate reality.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;41617339]Wait so does this mean it does not reverse the reflection ?[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=FlubberNugget;41617597]For any reflection to be perfect it must be reversed as such.
Otherwise it's not a reflection.
Correct me if I am wrong, please. This isn't exactly my field of expert but I'm going off what I have been taught.[/QUOTE]
FlubberNugget is right. This mirror does exactly what other mirrors do, Ganerumo, but it is a [I]perfect[/I] reflection as opposed to just a fairly accurate one.
This is what this perfect mirror does: A beam of light shining on the mirror at an angle 90 degrees perpendicular to the surface (which is to say, perfectly straight at the surface of the mirror) will be reflected back in exactly the same direction, to the same spot. It does not have any imperfections that would cause the beam to be diverted slightly off-course. It also doesn't absorb any of the light, since it is a perfect reflection.
What the perfect mirror does [B]not[/B] do: A normal mirror appears to reverse left and right: if you stand in front of a mirror and hold up your left hand, the mirror you will appear to hold up its [B]right[/B] hand. A real person standing across the table from you would hold up their left hand and have to reach diagonally across the middle to reach your left hand.
The perfect mirror [B]does not[/B] mean that when you stand in front of it and raise your left hand, your mirror image raises the hand that is straight in front of your [B]right[/B] hand. In terms of left and right, the perfect mirror acts just like any normal mirror, it's just extremely perfectly designed.
I'm not a physicist, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I'm right. :v:
[QUOTE=Electrocuter;41617566]If 0.9999 is 1 then 99.9999% is 100%.[/QUOTE]
.9... isn't 1 because that theory is based on converting decimals into imperfect fractions.
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