Recent content by unlimitedbacon

Maybe I understand this conceptually but not mathematically. I did not think that its rest mass changes. The link says E = pc, so in the end you still get p = E/c = hf/c. Neat. You could inject sunlight into the system by making one of them a one way mirror.

Ok I think I got this. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Since the mirrors are moving apart, the light would be redshifted. So the faster the mirrors go, the lower the frequency and longer the wavelength. The energy of a photon is related to its frequency by E = hf (where h is the...

Well I don't see where the energy would be coming from. They would both be gaining kinetic energy right? I took a shower and thought about it a little more. I guess you could pose the same question with two paddles and a ping pong ball. As each paddle accelerates, its velocity relative to the...

Lets say you have two perfectly reflective parallel mirrors in a frictionless vacuum. You fire off a beam of light between them, so that it bounces between them continuously. Do they continuously accelerate away from each other due to radiation pressure? I think the answer must be no, but I...