A mirror reverses the photon's momentum rather than stopping it, so the momentum handed to the surface doubles, giving P = 2E / c. The factor of two is the counting difference between absorption and reflection. It is exact only for a perfect reflector at normal incidence with stated irradiance; real mirrors absorb and scatter, and beam power and alignment carry measurement error.

A perfect mirror uses the same source but a doubled pressure multiplier. Exact arithmetic here means exact results for the stated model inputs; measured inputs still carry uncertainty and significant-figure limits.

highlighted = computed this step

A perfect mirror doubles the pressure

The mirror case uses the same irradiance and speed with multiplier two.

pmirror=2Ic=2 Pap_\text{mirror}=2\frac{I}{c}=2\ \text{Pa}
Mirror pressureAbsorber and mirror pressures are separate checked modes.irradianceSource=boundspeed=6 m/smode=absorberpressure=1 Padirection=normalirradianceSource=boundspeed=6 m/smode=mirrorpressure=2 Padirection=normal

The absorber value stays one pascal

The doubled value is not copied from the absorber label.

1 Pa→2 Pa1\ \text{Pa}\rightarrow 2\ \text{Pa}
Absorber versus mirrorThe two mode contracts share only the irradiance arithmetic.irradianceSource=boundspeed=6 m/smode=absorberpressure=1 Padirection=normalirradianceSource=boundspeed=6 m/smode=mirrorpressure=2 Padirection=normal