Why Do Mirrors Make You Look Backwards?

Imagine you're facing a mirror, and it's like you've got a twin standing right behind the glass, but this twin is a bit quirky. Instead of seeing your left hand on the left side, your twin shows their right hand on the left. That’s because mirrors flip things from left to right, not top to bottom. It might seem strange, but it's just how light bounces off the mirror and into your eyes.

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Examples

  1. You raise your right hand in front of a mirror, but what you see looks like someone raised their left hand.
  2. A cat walks up to a mirror, its reflection shows the cat facing the same direction it walked from, not flipped horizontally or vertically.
  3. If you look at your face in a mirror and smile, it seems like your twin is smiling back at you.

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Categories: Physics · optics· light· mirror images