Dear Andrew
>>Because glass is a pretty good absorber of IR it is also a pretty good emitter. >Surely glass absorbs the higher energy spectrum we can't see in the UV band Yes. And it gets warm touch it and see). >...and passes visible light and higher frequency infra red from hot bodies, like the sun, Most of it, the rest makes it warmer (absorbs). >but absorbs the lower energy infra red from cooler bodies like earth and our bodies. Yes, and because it is warm, and active in the IR, it also emits IR but with a low emissivity. In other words if you know the emissivity, you can read the temperature with an IR gun. But more to the point I was saying that at a lower (non 90°) angle, it starts to reflect radiation from the top of the surface. Look at glass at a low angle and it looks like a mirror. The point is that when reflecting heat, if the incident angle is past a critical value, it reflects pretty much all of it so the issues Kevin mentioned about the mirroring on the back dont come into play. Pauls question was about reflecting the heat. So the principles are the reflectivity, surface finish, incident angle and emissivity. While a stove may be good at sending IR radiation towards the pot, pots are not all that good at picking it up, actually. Stainless steel pots are quite reflective and do better picking up heat by convection. Regards Crispin
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