• ceenote@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    As I recall, the “Vampires have no reflection” stemmed from mirrors of the time usually being polished silver. So, I guess the vampire can do this if they’re okay with having silver pressed up against their face.

      • Grabthar@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Pretty sure they just poured silver nitrate over glass. You can still buy kits to do that to re-silver old mirrors for the original look. From what I can find, the layered ones were older, and they used tin and mercury which made breaking a mirror a rather unlucky event.

    • redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      Mirrors now are chemically deposited silver to my knowledge.
      Deposited on the back of the glass, then a protective layer applied on top. The amount of silver in that assembly is very low, and none is exposed, but the reflective component is the silver.

        • redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          I’m not certain, can’t find any reliable info on this.
          Shops don’t seem to specify the reflective material. In addition, aluminium is commonly used to describe the frame, and silver as a color for the frame or other parts, making it hard to get any info on the sales side.

          On the production-tech side, I see some pages talk only about silver, others mention both silver and aluminium. Silver commonly has a description of the chemical process at times (silver nitrate silvering), haven’t seen one for aluminium yet.

          Price wise, metal should be fully opaque around 10nm. Assuming a generous 100nm thickness, that makes 0.1€/m² worth of silver. I doubt material cost is a factor.

          Performance wise, silver seems better than aluminium in its reflectance. Honestly I don’t get why anyone would be making aluminium mirrors.

          Does anyone have more info on this?

  • Sibshops@lemmy.myserv.one
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    3 months ago

    Would this work? I think the light stops at the mirror because it’s silver.

    Normally

    1. Light hits the vampire.
    2. It bounces off their body.
    3. It hits the mirror
    4. It reflects from the mirror into your eyes.

    Silver mirror

    1. Light hits the vampire.
    2. It bounces off their body (now unholy light)
    3. It hits the mirror and gets absorbed
    4. Light doesn’t make it to your eyes

    So, technically, there really should be a vampire-shaped hole in the mirror where the vampire was.

    • Troy@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      The idea that light has a binary property of holy versus unholy is pretty funny. You could probably exploit this to do computing.

      • Sibshops@lemmy.myserv.one
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        3 months ago

        You have added The Unholy Spectroscope to your inventory.

        The concept of unholy light seems to imply vampires can be detected through unholy spectroscopy.

    • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      If I’m standing next to a vampire and give them the shirt off my back, does my shirt turn invisible in the mirror when they put it on?

      If a vampire gives me their shirt, at what point does it become visible in the mirror?

      What if the vampire is wearing a rope- can they spool out a hundred feet of mirror-invisible rope as long as some is on their body?

      I feel there’s a ton of applications for vampires- optics use mirrors a lot, can they wear a vehicle/tank/ship/etc and make it invisible to optics that utilize mirrors?

      • Sibshops@lemmy.myserv.one
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        3 months ago

        Well, if we treat incoming light as a quantum superposition:

        |light⟩ = α|holy⟩ + β|unholy⟩

        …and assume that vampires reflect only unholy light and absorb holy light, then anything directly part of the vampire’s “system” filters light this way.

        So I guess the question becomes, “How does the filtering happen?” Is it by physical surface, or is there some kind of quantum holiness field that absorbs holy light nearby?

        • CodexArcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          So if sunlight hurts vampires, but moonlight doesn’t (but moonlight is reflected sunlight) then does that mean the moon absorbs all holy light, and only reflects unholy light? Sunlight, we must assume, is composed of a random mix of all wavelengths and divinities of light. Therefore, can a vampire’s reflection be seen if the vampire is illuminated by moonlight? Only if using a non-silver mirror? What about office fluorescent light, the most evil light of all?

    • Fargeol@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I always thought it was a quantum effect: light is passing through the vampire and bouncing on it at the same time and it’s only when you observe its predicted path that you’ll project it in a defined state.

      But, from your point of view, light “knew” from the beginning that it had to pass through the vampire or bounce on it.

      • Sibshops@lemmy.myserv.one
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        3 months ago

        I don’t think the light “knew” from the beginning. The light started in a state of superposition, right? Both unholy and holy. Once it hits the vampire, only the unholy light is reflected, acting like a sort of filter similar to a polarizing lens.

  • SCmSTR
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    3 months ago

    I thought all of their clothes disappear in mirrors, too. Or what about water that they’re drinking…

  • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Vampires also have ultra instance senses, so they don’t need to look.behind them

    • squaresinger@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Try it out. Take a mirror, put it very close to your eye but angled sideways, since you can obviously not look through your head.

      You will have no issues at all focussing on what you are looking at, since you aren’t looking at the mirror at all.

      You can also try that while looking at yourself through a dirty mirror. You can either focus on the dirt on the mirror or on your face. You can’t see both the dirt and your face in focus at the same time.