Mirror images work because mirrors reflect light into your eyes, forming the image you see.
The Science of Reflection
Mirrors are highly reflective surfaces that interact with light in a specific way, making vision possible.
Light, Mirrors, and Your Eyes
The fundamental principle behind how you see a mirror image is the reflection of light. In a well-lit environment, light bounces off objects and then strikes the mirror's surface. The mirror then redirects this light.
As stated in the reference: In a well lit room a mirror bounces away photons at all angles all of the time, but only photons that bounce toward your eye reach it, forming the image in the retina and visual cortex. These tiny packets of light, called photons, travel in straight lines from the object, to the mirror, and then into your eye.
When photons from an object reflect off the mirror and enter your eye, your brain processes this information, creating the perception of an image that appears to be located behind the mirror.
Understanding the Image You See
The image you see in a mirror is formed by the specific paths of light that reach your eyes. Light from different parts of an object reflects off different parts of the mirror to reach your eye.
Consider the example from the reference: Photons reflected from your left hand striking the mirror near your right hand bounce away from your eye and so you don't see them. This illustrates that the photons from a specific point on an object need to reflect towards your eye from a particular spot on the mirror for you to see that point in the image. The collective effect of light reflecting from all points on the object and entering your eye from the mirror creates the full image.
The way light paths converge to your eye from the mirror creates the visual effect of the image appearing reversed laterally compared to the object, although physically it's a reversal in depth.
Key points about mirror images:
- Mirrors reflect photons (light) from objects.
- Only photons that reflect off the mirror towards your eye are seen.
- These photons form an image on your retina, which your brain processes.
- The path of light from object to mirror to eye determines where you see the image point.
Understanding this process of light reflection and detection by your visual system is key to knowing how mirror images work.
