3 Sep
2008
3 Sep
'08
7:04 p.m.
If this experiment occurred in a vacuum, and the wavelength of the light far exceeded the surface roughness of the mirror, how would the light even know that the mirror was moving? At 05:47 PM 9/3/2008, Eugene Salamin wrote:
Test your physical intuition. We know that when light reflects from a stationary mirror
(1) The frequency of the reflected light equals the frequency of the incident light,
(2) The direction of the incident ray, the direction of the reflected ray, and the mirror normal are coplanar, and
(3) The angle of reflection equals the angle of incidence.
Suppose however, that the mirror is moving parallel to its surface. Do these three principles of reflection continue to hold?
Gene