Here's another one
This mind problem is from a book called Callahan's Secret by Spider Robinson
"I've put this question to about thirty scientis in ten different disciplines," I said,"and to educators, and science fiction writers and editors I met at conventions and the funny thing is they all reacted teh same way. I'd lay out the question , and they'd all start to answer all away .. then they'd all catch themselves, fall silent, and get a far look ... and a minute or so later, they'd change the subject.
Imagine the experiment was taking place in space, in mircrogravity environment. Let's say that somewhere in orbit, there's a perfectly spherical object whose inner surface is mirrored: a spherical mirror,all right? Naturally it's dark in there. Floating with his eyes at dead center is an astronaut-never mind how he got there," I said. He's scared of the dark, so he takes a flashlight out of his pocket and turns it on.
<b>What does he see while looking at the mirror?"</b> edited
Everyone in the room started to answer at once
"Well, he-"
"The back of-"
"Nothing but pure white-"
-and then they all caught themselves. And fell silent. And got a far look
"I've put this question to about thirty scientis in ten different disciplines," I said,"and to educators, and science fiction writers and editors I met at conventions and the funny thing is they all reacted teh same way. I'd lay out the question , and they'd all start to answer all away .. then they'd all catch themselves, fall silent, and get a far look ... and a minute or so later, they'd change the subject.
Imagine the experiment was taking place in space, in mircrogravity environment. Let's say that somewhere in orbit, there's a perfectly spherical object whose inner surface is mirrored: a spherical mirror,all right? Naturally it's dark in there. Floating with his eyes at dead center is an astronaut-never mind how he got there," I said. He's scared of the dark, so he takes a flashlight out of his pocket and turns it on.
<b>What does he see while looking at the mirror?"</b> edited
Everyone in the room started to answer at once
"Well, he-"
"The back of-"
"Nothing but pure white-"
-and then they all caught themselves. And fell silent. And got a far look
Comments
But for what he sees immediately, possibly everything contained in the sphere at once (try raytracing from his eyes) and getting brighter until the the level of light being produced by the flashlight equals the level being absorbed by the suit, I imagine he'll get quite hot in there.
I'll pass <!--emo&:p--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':p'><!--endemo-->
Here's hoping he thought to close his eyes.
-Ryan!
"I have often been adrift, but I have always stayed afloat."
-- David Barry
Is that a typo? Is it supposed to say OUTER surface instead of INNER surface?
If the mirror was on the inside he'd probly see a gray ball or whatever the backside of the mirror looks like.
Anyways if this guy is so smart why doesnt he tell us da awnser!
He sees a mirriored sphere with light and his body all over da place.
<!--EDIT|rob6264|Oct. 22 2002,11:24-->
Is that a typo? Is it supposed to say OUTER surface instead of INNER surface?
If the mirror was on the inside he'd probly see a gray ball or whatever the backside of the mirror looks like.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, the mirror is on the inner surface, and the person is floating on the inside of the floating mirror ball. Imagine what that would look like in normal light for a bit, first.
Then imagine it's completely dark.
Then imagining turning a light on within this ball.
-Ryan!
"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge."
-- Albert Einstein
I conceptualised a light-based capacitor that could hold an almost infinite amount of energy. It was a hollow spherical hole constructed in the middle of a cube of material that has a high refractive index, like some crystals, with a vacuum inside. You would construct this sphere and shine in a light at the exact angle so that the effect of total internal reflection would endlessly mirror the light around inside the sphere, without loss of intensity. The other limit of this device is brought about by general relativity. As more and more energy gets stored in the sphere, the heavier it would get, as dictated by E=MC^2. You could keep pumping light into it until the crystal implodes under the gravitational attraction of the pseudo-weight inside it. The beauty of it is that it can be as small as you like and can still hold a <b>lot</b> of energy. The only problem is getting the energy out. This could be done by smashing the crystal and collecting the light as it raced away or by having a cylindrical core that is cut down through the crystal into the hollow hole with the end perfectly ground to match the inner surface. When this "plug" is removed, all the light would escape in all directions. We would need to develop radiation to electrical energy conversion a long way past solar panels to effectively collect the energy.
This would make one hella effective bomb, incinerating anything in a radius in any direction with an intense blast of high energy photons, ouchie.
--Scythe—
P.S. If anyone goes off and makes squillions off this idea, gimmie some :-D
<!--EDIT|Scythe|Oct. 22 2002,16:32-->