The Most Reflective Mirror In The World

[robertlapointe]

The technology for making this material (some very fancy laminar flow extrusion dies) was developed at Dow Chemical's Michigan Division in the mid 1980's. As usual, Dow couldn't find their butts with both hands and didn't think it would ever have a large enough market to be worth their time, so they sold it to 3M. Fun fact, if the two different polymers are both transparent elastomers, then you get a wavelength selective reflector that can be adjusted by stretching (which makes the individual layers thinner). The pieces I saw demonstrated could go from fully reflective in visible light to fully transparent with about a 3X stretch. In between would give some interesting polychromic Moire patterns.

[jhonbus]

I'm sure our distant ancestors would be gratified to see that even after thousands of years, people are still excited by shiny stuff.

[ge]

i wonder if this would improve the effect of an infinity mirror. since the near side has to be a one way reflective mirror film some brightness will always be lost with each reflection, but it should make the effect brighter over all and give a deeper infinity

[bricology]

Since this material is so flexible, I would love to see a _cylindrical_ room with the wall(s?) covered with it!

[mag]

The reflective effect layering has on this polymer reminds me of mica rock. Its reflective and shiny but you can peel off the thin rock layers and each of them are transparent! I wonder if a similar effect is going on there?

[SwissPGO]

The principle even works for (soft) x-rays - I used it 30 years ago to build x-ray lasers. For harder x-rays, crystals can be used.

[birdnird]

Imagine using this in a solartube or something like it, to bring natural light deep into buildings

[hexerey]

It would be so cool to see you make a mirrored room like you've done before made of this stuff.

[Daivd]

What an amazing video! yet another case of 'how amazing the stuff is around us that you don't even know' explained in a concise video.

[anthonyshiels]

When I was in high school I was entered into a science competition.
My project was to illustrate Brewster 's Law which states that you get maximum polarisation of the reflected light when the tangent of the angle of incidence is numerically equal to the refractive index of the reflecting medium.
Thank you for the happy memories from the December 1973 Aer Lingus Young Scientists Exhibition.

[IorekByrnison]

The ending explanation is just like the fur on polar bears. There's a bunch huddled togather to make a polar bear look white. While in fact, polar bears have black skin and transparent fur.

[zmbhrd]

You touched upon those mirrors that can be used to reflect a specific wavelength of light, I would have liked to hear more about those!

I used to work in color darkrooms that has both additive and subtractive color enlargers, so I can already foresee modern uses, but your take and research would be fascinating.

Thanks.

[mechanicalcowboy]

I wonder if they could lay this material down on a rigid substrate to make a telescope mirror?

[loganreidy]

I know for most LASERs similar products are used both for the reflector and the output coupler. Out of curiosity have you tried putting a piece of that on both ends of a lasing material to make an open cavity laser? Maybe niodimiun YAG and a flashlight with a blue bandpass filter

[edweinb]

Explanation at 6:30 would mean that the interference effect will depend on the angle of incidence since path length in the medium is angle dependent.

[KerbalFacile]

Incidentally, pinching the tubed mirror to turn it into a mini "flashlight" is an awesome demonstration of how cats' eyes get to see so well in the dark.

[gluino]

6:30 The constructive interference explanation is not sufficient, because usually this arrangement results in color-shifts at different viewing angles, when white light is used.

[carlswenson]

3m is badass. pretty sure they're responsible for literally tens of thousands of crazy materials

[davewilliam]

When you look that mirror you see a refection of yourself.

[joepeach]

This is one of the most fascinating items I never knew about until now! Could it be used to increase the output of solar panels? It just seems like there are so many applications this could be used to enhance, from LEDs to optical devices and much more! What a great video and thank you.