Hiya escapists.
A while back, I learned in school that photons can excite the atoms in a gas, and that those atoms will then proceed to emit photons of the same wavelength. This causes the gas to glow (provided that the photons are of a visible wavelength).
So I was thinking: What if you could encapsulate a gas - helium for instance - inside a container which, on the inside, is a perfect mirror (My physics teacher described it as White matter); and then somehow manage to excite the gas inside the container.
Would the gas continue to glow for eternity?
Edit: The Scrödinger's cat issue did bother me for a while, but I figure we should be able to predict the outcome of a situation, even if we may not investigate the outcome should the situation really occur.
A while back, I learned in school that photons can excite the atoms in a gas, and that those atoms will then proceed to emit photons of the same wavelength. This causes the gas to glow (provided that the photons are of a visible wavelength).
So I was thinking: What if you could encapsulate a gas - helium for instance - inside a container which, on the inside, is a perfect mirror (My physics teacher described it as White matter); and then somehow manage to excite the gas inside the container.
Would the gas continue to glow for eternity?
Edit: The Scrödinger's cat issue did bother me for a while, but I figure we should be able to predict the outcome of a situation, even if we may not investigate the outcome should the situation really occur.