If two mirrors face one another how long would it take for the image to develop, would it happen instantly or would it develop at approx the speed of light down to as fine as the quality of the mirror would allow?
Another mirror Question. If two mirrors were microscopicaly precision convexed could they be aimed at one another and produce an image of any microscopic value?
Information can not travel faster than light so an image forming instantaneously is right out. And I have no idea what your second question means.
I didn’t mean instantly, I actually meant does the image have to travel back and forth at the speed of light until it can no longer change.
On this question I was asking if two mirrors could be built in such a way as to slightly enlarge an image and then send that image back and forth blowing it up each time.
The image itself doesn’t travel. Individual photons do travel back and forth at the speed of light. If you call this collection of photons an image, then image could be said to also travel at the speed of light.
As far as the convex mirrors go… there’s an issue here in that the mirrors are constantly reflecting light back and forth. It’s not like we can trap a single image, blow it up between two mirrors and look at it. If we can see the image, it means that photons have escaped the mirrors. Furthermore, photons would be entering and leaving the mirrors all the time, so any magnified image would be overlapped by all of the non-magnified images and I doubt you’d have anything of use.
As I understand the question: When you’re standing between two parallel mirrors, you can look off to the side and see an infinite number of images of you, extending off into the infinite distance. If you had such a room and quickly stepped in between the mirrors and looked off into the distance, would your distant images be present yet?
The answer to that is no, it is in fact limited by the speed of light. If you were quick enough and could see details far enough away, you would see, far off in the distance, the image of the empty room, and then see you walking in and aiming your telescope. Of course, practically speaking the experiment is impossible, since the mirrors won’t be perfectly reflective or perfectly parallel, and the speed of light is so quick.