A mirror is an object that reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the direction of the image in an equal yet opposite angle from which the light shines upon it. This allows the viewer to see themselves or objects behind them, or even objects that are at an angle from them but out of their field of view, such as around a corner. Natural mirrors have existed since prehistoric times, such as the surface of water, but people have been manufacturing mirrors out of a variety of materials for thousands of years, like stone, metals, and glass. In modern mirrors, metals like silver or aluminum are often used due to their high reflectivity, applied as a thin coating on glass because of its naturally smooth and very hard surface.
A mirror is a wave reflector. Light consists of waves, and when light waves reflect off the flat surface of a mirror, those waves retain the same degree of curvature and vergence, in an equal yet opposite direction, as the original waves. The light can also be pictured as rays (imaginary lines radiating from the light source, that are always perpendicular to the waves). These rays are reflected at an equal yet opposite angle from which they strike the mirror (incident light). This property, called specular reflection, distinguishes a mirror from objects that diffuse light, breaking up the wave and scattering it in many directions (such as flat-white paint). Thus, a mirror can be any surface in which the texture or roughness of the surface is smaller (smoother) than the wavelength of the waves.
When looking at a mirror, one will see a mirror image or reflected image of objects in the environment, formed by light emitted or scattered by them and reflected by the mirror towards one's eyes. This effect gives the illusion that those objects are behind the mirror, or (sometimes) in front of it. When the surface is not flat, a mirror may behave like a reflecting lens. A plane mirror will yield a real-looking undistorted image, while a curved mirror may distort, magnify, or reduce the image in various ways, while keeping the lines, contrast, sharpness, colors, and other image properties intact.
A mirror is commonly used for inspecting oneself, such as during personal grooming; hence the old-fashioned name looking glass. This use, which dates from prehistory, overlaps with uses in decoration and architecture. Mirrors are also used to view other items that are not directly visible because of obstructions; examples include rear-view mirrors in vehicles, security mirrors in or around buildings, and dentist's mirrors. Mirrors are also used in optical and scientific apparatus such as telescopes, lasers, cameras, periscopes, and industrial machinery.
The terms "mirror" and "reflector" can be used for objects that reflect any other types of waves. An acoustic mirror reflects sound waves. Objects such as walls, ceilings, or natural rock-formations may produce echos, and this tendency often becomes a problem in acoustical engineering when designing houses, auditoriums, or recording studios. Acoustic mirrors may be used for applications such as parabolic microphones, atmospheric studies, sonar, and sea floor mapping. An atomic mirror reflects matter waves, and can be used for atomic interferometry and atomic holography.
Where do you put an object in front of a concave mirror of focal length 10 cm to produce an image that is inverted and 2.5 times greater than the object?
I have no idea how to solve this.. help..
Homework Statement
A concave mirror of focal length 10cm in air is put into a beaker containing a liquid up to 7.5cm. Refractive index of the liquid is 1.2. What is the focal length of the mirror inside the beaker?
The Attempt at a Solution
I tried proportion method:
Depth...
Homework Statement
If you are walking towards a mirror at 7 m/s, how fast are you and your image approaching each other? Answer in m/s.
Homework Equations
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The Attempt at a Solution
I'm not sure how to solve this mathmatically but when I first looked at this question, I just...
Distance and your image on a mirror??
1. Homework Statement
A) If you are 1 meter away from a plane mirror and approach the mirrow at 1 m/s, how long does it take you to reach your image?
B) At what speed do you approach your image if you walk towards a plane mirror at 1...
Assume that your eyes are located at the top of your 1.60 m tall body.
a) What size plance mirror would you need to see your whole body if you were standing 1 m from it?
b) How far from the floor should the bottom edge of the mirror be placed?
c) How would your answers to (a) and (b) change...
Hi,
I read several literatures on quantum cryptography plug and play system. I found out that Faraday mirror was used to compensate polarization fluctuations. Photons are reflected orthogonally by Faraday mirror and their polarization changes will then be autocompensated, provided they follow...
Homework Statement
A trucker sees the image of a car passing her truck in her diverging rear view mirror whose focal length is -60cm. If the car is 1.5m high and 6.0m away, what is the size and location of the image?
Homework Equations
1/f = 1/di + 1/do
The Attempt at a...
Hi!
The diagram below shows two mirrors X and Y, and a solid object with
white spots at P and Q.
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/9284/unbenanntcwz.jpg
An observer at A sees an image of P reflected in mirror Y. Mark R,
the position of this image, and draw a ray from P to the...
I know that mirror symmetry resulting in mirror matter and supersymmetry resulting in SUSY partners are two completely distinct fields, and that the original bosonic string theory needs SUSY to get fermions.
If mirror matter does exist in the universe, what would this mean in terms of SUSY...
Homework Statement
a plane electromagnetic wave of intensity 6.00 W/m^2, moving in the x direction, strikes a small pocket mirror of area 40.0cm^2, held in the yz plane.
(a) what momentum does the wave transfer to the mirror each second?
(b) find the force that the wave exerted on the...
Mirror equation help! please urgent!
Homework Statement
The distance from the lens of someone's eye to the retina is 20.0 mm. if the image of a book held 40.0 cm is in front of the eye in sharp focus, what is the effective focal length of the lense.
the back of the book says the answer is...
When designing a space based energy satellite for our project, we ran across the option to just use a mirror to reflect extra light to a photovoltaic ground station on earth. The main difficulty of this option is that due to the fact that the light coming from the south pole of the sun hits the...
Hi,
I just ordered my first primary mirror (10") for DOB from Coulter Optics.
I want to test it after it arrives. Does anyone has expirience with testing/checking params for parabolic mirrors?
Clear skies!
1. Light from a distant star is collected by a concave mirror. How far from the mirror is the image of the star if the radius of curvature is 150 cm?
2. 1/f = 1/do + 1/di
3. 1/f = 1/do + 1/di
f = 150/2 = 75 cm
di = dof/do - f
= do(75)/do- 75...
Homework Statement
An object is placed 15cm from a certain mirror, the image is half the size of the object, upright, and virtual. how far is the image fromt he mirror, and what is the radius of curavature of the mirror?
Homework Equations
1/f = 1/p + 1/q
f= r/2
The Attempt at a...
Convex mirror problem help??
Homework Statement
a convex mirror has a focal length of 75cm. an object with a height of 2.0m is 6.0m from the mirror.
a) what is the distance from the object's virtual image to the mirror?
b) what is the height of the object's image?
Homework Equations...
Homework Statement
A concave mirror with a focal length of 34.4 cm produces an image whose distance from the mirror is one-third the object distance. Calculate the object distance.
Homework Equations
(1/f)=(1/do) + (1/di)
The Attempt at a Solution
I know that i have to use the...
Homework Statement
A physics student wants toobtain a real and virtual image that each is 3 times as large as the original object she has a concave mirror with a 0.50 m radius of curvature. what object distance will she require to obtain the real image?
Homework Equations
1/do + 1/di =...
Homework Statement
An object is located 14 cm in front of a convex mirror, the image being 7 cm behind the mirror. A second object, twice as tall as the first one, is placed in front of the mirror, but at a different location. The image of this second object has the same height as the other...
Homework Statement
#1) How many images can be seen? 2 mirrors, one on x axis, other y axis.
Homework Equations
Law of reflection: \varthetai=\varthetar
Is the positioning correct? I thought that rays bounce off the x-axis mirror then y-axis mirror to give 2 images. The third image...
I have problem in my design.
how efficient the glass will transfer heat after reflection.
The heat will purely come from sunlight.
Can anyone tell me about the efficiency of glass...
then, is it any angle to reflection of sunlight into incline area, because i am trying to reflect the...
concave mirror!
Homework Statement
The real image produced by a concave mirror is found to be 0.756 times the size of the object. If the distance from the mirror to the screen on which the image appears is 0.764 m , what is the focal length of the mirror?
Homework Equations
(a) 1...
Would light in a hollow sphere with one way mirror around it continue to have the light trapped bouncing inside forever? one way mirror so in a dark room you can see the light inside. infinite lite light bulb..sorta.
Homework Statement
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You are preparing to go shopping for a plane mirror that will be hung on the wall of your dressing room. Your overall height is H = 2.3 m, and the vertical distance from the floor to the...
Homework Statement
A concave mirror has a focal length of 27.2 cm. The distance between an object and its image is 50.2 cm. Find (a) the object and (b) the image distance assuming that the object lies beyond the center of curvature.
Homework Equations
f=1/2 R
1/object distance + 1/image...
I know that when the focal point is in the inside of a concave mirror. The focal point is greater than zero, and the radius is greater than zero and the lateral magnification is greater than zero.
So if the focal point is on the outside of this concave mirror. Would the focal point be...
I'm having problems doing the problem below. The equation in the hint is: I = Ps/(4*PI*r^2) which I have not clue how it relates to this question except for that it's an equation for intensity.
I know that there will be a image produced a distance d behind the mirror, so there will be another...
hello,
I found a concave mirror telescope in my town
I think that it is very good for making Newton telescope
Estimated length of 20 cm
I will make a telescope , but I have a problem , I do not know the place of the focus
and the place of secondery mirror; after focus or before...
hi again. i totally rocked my physics homework this week, except for this last one.
Homework Statement
Consider a spherical mirror without making the paraxial approximation (Fig. 36-47, attached as a file). When a ray parallel to the axis makes an angle θ with the radius R at the point of...
Homework Statement
In a church choir loft, two parallel walls are
4.98 m apart. The singers stand against the
north wall. The organist faces the south wall,
sitting 0.967 m away from it. So that she can
see the choir, a flat mirror 0.855 m wide is
mounted in the south wall, straight in front...
Homework Statement
A mirror moves perpendicular to its plane with speed (beta)c. A light ray is incident on the
mirror from the \forward" direction (i.e., vm dot vl < 0, where vm is the mirror's 3-velocity and vl is the light ray's 3-velocity) with incident angle µ (measured with respect to...
Homework Statement
A light ray leaves point A in the figure, reflects from the mirror, and reaches point B. (Intro 1 figure) figure attached
How far below the top edge does the ray strike the mirror?
Homework Equations
The Attempt at a Solution
im not sure exactly where it...
This is a question from a mathematically-inclined homeowner who knows he /should/ be able to figure it out, but can't.
I need to hang a heavy mirror in a house in Berkeley, CA, which is a seismically-active area. The mirror has a cable on the back of it attached to two sides of the mirror...
A concave mirror creates an image on the screen 2x larger than the object. BOTH objects and screen are subsequently moved in order to create an image on the screen 3x larger than the object. If the screen is moved 0.75 m in this process, how far is the object also moved?
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Magnification, M =...
Homework Statement
Show that the mirror equation can be derived using the same principles that were used in deriving the equation for lenses.
Homework Equations
\frac{1}{f}=\frac{1}{d_{o}}+\frac{1}{d_{i}}
The Attempt at a Solution
There really doesn't appear to be any work to put...
Homework Statement
An object whose height is 0.375 cm is at a distance of 10.5 cm from a spherical concave mirror. Its image is real and has a height of 1.145 cm. Calculate the radius of curvature of the mirror.
Correct, computer gets: 1.58e+01 cm
ACTUAL QUESTION
How far from the...
Homework Statement
A concave shaving mirror has a radius of curvature of 40 cm. It is positioned so that the (upright) image of a man's face is 3.30 times the size of the face. How far is the mirror from the face?
Homework Equations
M = Si/S 1/S + 1/Si = 2/R
The Attempt at a...
Homework Statement
does anyone know how to do this plane mirror question?
The rear window in a car is approximately a rectangle, 1.29 m wide and 0.330 m high. The inside rear-view mirror is 0.480 m from the driver's eyes, and 1.27 m from the rear window. What is the minimum height of the...
Lets say you are looking through a two way mirror on the side where you can see through it, and there is a mirror on the other side. What would you see? So there is two mirrors back to back and you can see through one of them. So when the light bounces off the first mirror and trys to go back...
Homework Statement
An inverted image is magnified by 2 when the object is placed 22 cm in front of a concave mirror. Determine the image distance and the focal length of the mirror.
Homework Equations
don't have,sorry
The Attempt at a Solution
firstly,i use M= -di/do then i got...
Rules: Compress to single digits to reveal ratio pattern.
The line is to be followed - 1,2,4,8,7,5 and back to 1. Each number being added to itself.The other line is the invisible nines.
Control Dial:
2-D Skin (ignore the +&-)
3-D Torus
Have fun! :smile:
[Urgent] What is the angle of the the mirror?
Homework Statement
There is an intriguing aspect to Vermerr's "The Music" painting. If you notice, in the mirror there is a reflection of the woman and above that there is a reflection of what appears to be the feet of an easel. Upon closer...
An object is placed 1m in front of a plane mirror. An observer stands 3m behind the object. For what distance must the observer focus his eyes in order to see the image of the object?
My guess is that the observer would have to focus their eyes 3m in order to see the image because when the...
Homework Statement
A concave mirror has a focal length of
33.5 cm.
Determine the object position for which the
resulting image is upright and five times the
size of the subject.
Answer in units of cm.
Homework Equations
m=-(di/do)
(1/di)+(1/do)= 1/f
The Attempt at a Solution...
Homework Statement
Mastering physics problem 23.76 difficulty rating: two bars=difficult
A 2.0-cm-tall object is placed in front of a mirror. A 1.0-cm-tall upright image is formed behind the mirror, 180cm from the object.
What is the focal length of the mirror?
Homework Equations...
Hi. I am an artist and currently working on a project using mirrors. I need to transfer an image (portrait photo) onto a mirror so I can trace directly on the mirror surface so I have the guides to then paint over it. I would like to be able to use an overhead projector but of course the light...