The angle of reflection equals the angle of incidence. A mirror has a smooth surface and reflects light at specific angles. Light is diffused when it reflects from a rough surface. Mirror images can be photographed and videotaped by instruments.

Using a mirror, you can take light from one place and make it travel to another. Point your flashlight at the mirror. Light shines on your face, then bounces off it and hits the mirror you are looking into. Then, the light bounces, or reflects, off the mirror and right into your eyes.

When photons — rays of light — coming from an object (your smiling face, for example) strike the smooth surface of a mirror, they bounce back at the same angle. Your eyes see these reflected photons as a mirror image. If a smooth surface absorbs the photons, they can’t bounce back and there will be no reflection.

Some polished or very smooth objects such as crystals are shiny. Shiny objects reflect most light that hits them in a particular direction. than shiny objects as they absorb some of the light energy. Their surfaces are less smooth than those of shiny objects, so the light they reflect scatters in all directions.

Regardless of whether light is acting as particles or waves, however, the result of reflection is the same. The reflected light produces a mirror image. The amount of light reflected by an object, and how it is reflected, is highly dependent upon the degree of smoothness or texture of the surface.

Anything that reflects a color will look that color. White, gray, and black are not colors, though: white reflects all colors, black absorbs all colors, and gray reflects some and absorbs some of all colors. Light is energy. Any light that is absorbed, of any color, becomes heat.

Obviously the black strip absorbed the most. But the red, blue, and green ones did not absorb much. Interestingly, the dark gray and purple ones absorbed absorbed more than I would imagine.

The more light the object absorbs, the more heat absorbed since light is energy. If you consider it a color, black absorbs the most heat. A black object absorbs all wavelengths of light and reflects none. Objects that are white, on the other hand, reflect all wavelengths of light and therefore absorb the least heat.

Silver reflects much more light, so you’ll use silver when you position the reflector back away from your subject. If you need to get a reflector right up close, then use white, because it doesn’t reflect nearly as much light as silver.

A mirror reflects all colours in a uniform way. A mirror reflects 80% of the light. White paint reflects more than a mirror. A mirror reflects an incident light ray in only one direction which is called “mirror reflection”.

Nanorod coating

Light Reflectivity

Metallic silver (Ag), gold (Au) and aluminum (Al) are the most widely studied as highly reflective materials. Other materials such as different nanocrystalline metal oxides -TiO2, ZnO, MgO and Al2O3 are widely used as IR reflectors.

Aluminum foil can be place on the grow room’s walls and laid under the room’s plants to reflect light. Hang aluminum foil with its shiny side outward instead of against the wall. The foil doesn’t reflect as much light as white paint or grow films, but the amount of light reflected should improve plant growth.