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It might sound awkward but can we capture light inside a kaleidoscope or any closed surface whose inner surface can reflect light Consider two cases

  1. When light is perfectly reflected

  2. When light is not perfectly reflected

Qmechanic
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Rinki Dwivedi
  • 49
  • Also see http://news.mit.edu/2014/trapping-light-miniature-particle%20accelerators-improved-data-transmission-1222 – AlphaLife Jul 19 '18 at 07:19
  • Possible duplicates: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/21301/2451 , https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/12417/2451 and links therein. – Qmechanic Jul 19 '18 at 07:51

1 Answers1

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1: If the light is inside a cavity with perfect reflection, we've, in the classical sense, captured light. We can not observe it however without "consuming it". In the quantum mechanical sense, it is not captured since there are more details to the matter than just reflection.

2: Related to the above answer, if we've imperfect reflection, the photons are transmitted somewhere and we would not have trapped all the photons

DakkVader
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  • Can you explain what do you mean by "more details to the matter" – Rinki Dwivedi Jul 19 '18 at 15:21
  • @RinkiDwivedi we'll i've no rigorous background in quantum physics so i'd appreciate if someone else could hop in here and help me out, but there are quantum mechanical effects that would basically make it impossible for us to have 100% trapped light. I think we're best off waiting for someone else to add their knowledge here then for me to attemp a halfassed response that makes no sense. – DakkVader Jul 20 '18 at 06:27