Why do Mirrors flip the image of the bodies they project?
I really need to know why, why does the image appearing in a mirror is flipped horizontally. Thanks all!
why does it seem flipped only horizontally?
I really need to know why, why does the image appearing in a mirror is flipped horizontally. Thanks all!
why does it seem flipped only horizontally?
?
Favorite Answer
A mirror flips front to back and not "horizontally". Untrained brains are not used to seeing things flipped front to back and get confused into thinking things are flipped left to right. Mirrors flip an image front to back because the light bounces off of the mirror's surface. Light coming from a far distance (your back), upon bouncing, looks like it came from a far distance from the other direction behind the mirror's surface, which is the front direction. Take a look at this link for some pictures that make this more clear:
http://sciencequestionswithchris.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/why-do-mirrors-flip-left-to-right-and-not-up-to-down/
Rob
The answer is surprising: because it's not flipping the image horizontally at all. It's inverting the image front-to-back.
The Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman explains it neatly here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msN87y-iEx0