Okay, but how actually do mirrors reflect light?

Light is made of photons, so how do mirrors put the photons on a route that follows the law of reflection?

4 points · 7 comments · view on lemmy.world

7 Comments

light is also a wave, and don’t forget, some wavelengths will go right through the mirror and not reflect at all

Tomassci@kbin.social · 1 pts · 3y (5 replies)

That is indeed true, but how do you redirect a wave with what is just a bunch of atoms? Do you reradiate it?

No, the wave is just bouncing off the atoms in the mirror, same as sound would

Tomassci@kbin.social · 1 pts · 3y (3 replies)

How does that work?

See Newton’s Laws

Tomassci@kbin.social · 1 pts · 3y (1 reply)

I don't that's how it works, after all it's a different scale and quantum mechanical

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