Homework 4/25/00

Q3.  Nonsense.  A mirror doesn't reverse anything.  What is on the bottom of your body appears on the bottom of the image in the mirror.  What is on the top of your body appears on topof the image.  What is on the left appears on the left and what is on the right appears on the right.  When you look at the image you interpret it as if it is another person standing behind the mirror facing you.  The left side of this imaginary person standing behind the mirror looks just like your right side and their right side looks like your left.  People say that a mirror reverses right and left because of their interpretation of the image, not because the mirror reversed anything.  (NOTE:  This is not understood by the people who make up IQ tests.  On such tests always say a mirror reverses left and right because they think that is the correct answer.  You have to learn to play the game.)

Q6.  When your eye is closer to a concave (converging) mirror than the focal point, the virual image of you eye is formed behind your eye and you cannot see it.   If  some other object is located closer to the mirror than the focal point, you can see the image if your eye is farther away from the mirror than the image distance.

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