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In this video, I talk about two very unusual physics phenomena: The Intermediate Axis Theorem and A Single Photon Sent to a 50% Transmissive Mirror
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Only cosmonauts would go and work to this Russian space station. In between these space missions, the station would sometimes remain empty. In 1985, while there was no one on the station, its connection with the earth was suddenly cut off. It began to drift in orbit, making unpredictable movements, and all its systems shut down. A rescue mission was planned to prevent it from falling uncontrollably to earth. Two cosmonauts went to the station and tried to repair it. This highly challenging mission was later recognized as one of the most impressive achievements in space history. Even a movie was made about this mission. Vladimir Dzhanibekov, one of the cosmonauts who went there, noticed this unusual behaviour of the handle while working inside to save Salyut-7.
And when he returned home, he immediately reported this situation to his superiors. But his superiors did not want to announce this to the public immediately. They kept this situation a secret for 10 years. So why? Why did they keep this movement they discovered a secret for 10 years? To do this, we first need to understand what is happening.
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When we send light to 50% reflective mirrors, half of it passes to the other side and half is reflected. When you look at it this way, there is no problem.
If I throw 1000 lights, 500 passes and 500 are reflected. But things get a little weird when you ask a question like this: If I were to send out a single particle of light, a single photon, what would decide whether it would pass or not? The most plausible explanation is that this is random. It's not much different from tossing a coin. After all, when tossing a coin, I cannot predict when it will be heads or tails. But I know that if I toss enough coins, half will be heads and half will be tails. However, it seems that this is not the case with mirrors… Now let's set up an experimental setup to test it. We have a mirror in the middle, a laser below, and detectors at both ends. When we fire the laser, half of the light reaches both detectors, as we expected. Now, to diversify this, let's replace the detectors with mirrors. These are fully reflective mirrors and they reflect the light and deliver it to the detectors.
We haven't changed much, just the paths of the light intersecting each other. But in the end, detectors still measure 50%-50%. Now let's place another semi-transparent mirror where the light intersects, right before the detectors. Half of the light coming from the first section will be reflected and reach the first detector. Since the light coming from the first section is already 50%, it will reach the detector as 25% reflection. Half of the light coming from the second section, that is, 25%, should pass through the mirror, letting us to measure 50% again in the first detector. So again, nothing actually changes.
We should measure 50%-50%. But when we do measure… We see that no light goes to the first detector, all the light goes to the second detector. But how could it be?
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Researched and Written by: Ögetay Kayalı
Edited by: Alperen Çatak
Edited and Presented by: Barış Özcan
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Full text of the video and sources used:
barisozcan.com