Change of momentum of photon upon reflection

serverxeon
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1. What is the change in momentum of a photon when it bounces off a mirror?
(assuming it's a perfect mirror)


My guess is that it's 2h/\lambda. But i think it should be more complex than this.
 
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You're guess is correct.

I suspect it was more than a guess, and that you are actually thinking about it correctly! :smile:
 
To solve this, I first used the units to work out that a= m* a/m, i.e. t=z/λ. This would allow you to determine the time duration within an interval section by section and then add this to the previous ones to obtain the age of the respective layer. However, this would require a constant thickness per year for each interval. However, since this is most likely not the case, my next consideration was that the age must be the integral of a 1/λ(z) function, which I cannot model.
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