#56682 How a mirror works

vorpal blade · Post by **vorpal blade** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:10 am

I didn't understand this question until I read Laser Jock's answer. I forget that many people don't really understand how a mirror works. It is hard to explain to someone who has no idea how images are formed in your eye (or camera).

vorpal blade · Post by **vorpal blade** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:16 am

On a related note, a couple of my grandchildren have recently been talking to me by way of webcam. When they see themselves on the monitor they think that the camera has the right and left mixed up. It doesn't, they are just seeing themselves as others see them, but not how they see themselves in the mirror. I can't explain it to them.

Post by **Laser Jock** » Fri Mar 26, 2010 5:06 am

This question was harder to answer than I thought it would be when I first read it. I realized as I tried to find a way to explain the concept that I, personally, mostly just went off of a combination of intuition and math, and for someone who hasn't had basic optics the math isn't going to help. Hopefully the way I ended up answering it did help the asker.

NerdGirl · Post by **NerdGirl** » Fri Mar 26, 2010 5:12 am

Your answer was very good, Laser Jock. I had someone ask me after a planetarium show a few weeks ago why we only see light from the projector when it hits the screen, as opposed to seeing it a beam of light going from the projector to the screen. That's a bit more difficult to explain than it first seems, but I think I managed to do it without confusing her even more.

vorpal blade · Post by **vorpal blade** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 2:56 am

I thought your answer was clear and helpful. Too bad the people who ask the questions don't always take the time to let you know if your answer was helpful or not.

Post by **Laser Jock** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 4:36 pm

NerdGirl wrote:Your answer was very good, Laser Jock. I had someone ask me after a planetarium show a few weeks ago why we only see light from the projector when it hits the screen, as opposed to seeing it a beam of light going from the projector to the screen. That's a bit more difficult to explain than it first seems, but I think I managed to do it without confusing her even more.

Thanks! And yeah, it's funny how things like that are harder to explain than they seem.

vorpal blade wrote:I thought your answer was clear and helpful. Too bad the people who ask the questions don't always take the time to let you know if your answer was helpful or not.

Thanks. Alas, it's not currently very easy to respond to helpful answers. We're changing some things in the next version that ought to help a bit, though.