I’m an electrical engineer living in Los Angeles, CA.

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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • ooterness@lemmy.worldtoScience Memes@mander.xyzstrobe party
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    4 days ago

    Strictly speaking, you are correct. The key assumption for my statement above is that both objects are black-body radiators.

    In practical terms, it still ain’t happening when the light source is a bunch of fireflies.

    Aside: Lasers are a really weird case. The population inversion required for stimulated emission is basically the opposite of a classic thermal equilibrium. By some definitions, they are so hot their “temperature” wraps around to negative (i.e., less than zero Kelvin). That factoid took me a while to wrap my head around.


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    5 days ago

    Unfortunately, this idea isn’t going to work.

    Lenses and mirrors can’t focus a diffuse source to a sharp point. They are also reciprocal; any light that can move one way through an optical system can also move the other way. As a result, you can’t use a lens or mirror to heat something beyond the temperature of the light source. The net flow of energy is always from the hot thing to the cold thing.

    For the sun, that limit is almost 6000K, so you can do some damage. For fireflies, not so much.