Reflector size . . . what if?

jblackwood · Feb 4, 2009

Note to Mods:
I really think there are two aspects to this conversation but if you must, please move/merge this thread with the other one in the "Electronics, batteries included," forum.

If you were shrunk down to ant-size, would the strongest throwers be able to produce a beam strong enough, bright enough to be spotted by normal eyes?

If you want to know the origin to this question, the other thread has it. To discuss the implications of (flashlight) shrinkage :naughty: on batteries, find my other thread in the batteries forum.

Have at it, gentlemen.

Moonshadow · Feb 4, 2009

If you are meaning that the flashlight is also shrunk to ant-size, then sooner or later I would imagine you'd be getting into diffraction effects, which would limit your beam-producing ability.

Nearest optical device that I can think of with sub-millimetre aperture sizes would be fibre optics, so that might be a useful line of enquiry.

[ You might also run into some heat-dissipation problems as you scale down - the volume available to soak up heat reduces as the cube of the scale factor, and the surface-area available to radiate it away as the square of the scale factor, so all other things being equal, a 10x smaller light might be only able to cope with something between 1/1000th and 1/100th of the power ]

jblackwood · Feb 4, 2009

Moonshadow said:
If you are meaning that the flashlight is also shrunk to ant-size, then sooner or later I would imagine you'd be getting into diffraction effects, which would limit your beam-producing ability.

Nearest optical device that I can think of with sub-millimetre aperture sizes would be fibre optics, so that might be a useful line of enquiry.

[ You might also run into some heat-dissipation problems as you scale down - the volume available to soak up heat reduces as the cube of the scale factor, and the surface-area available to radiate it away as the square of the scale factor, so all other things being equal, a 10x smaller light might be only able to cope with something between 1/1000th and 1/100th of the power ]

Fascinating. I don't have the technical expertise to respond, but does anyone disagree with this? Would the volume of the chemicals in the batteries produce that much less current/amperage? With less surface area, there'd also be much less heat to absorb too, wouldn't there?

Moonshadow · Feb 4, 2009

Since there is another thread for it, I didn't comment on the batteries at first, but yes, the volume of the batteries would also be reduced, so at 1/10th scale, you'd have only 1/1000th the total energy available (assuming the same chemistry).

Reflector size . . . what if?

jblackwood

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Moonshadow

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jblackwood

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Moonshadow

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