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I don't get mirrors. -or- The lost art...

disappoint

disappoint

Lifer
They are weird. Why do mirrors reverse, or flip the image horizontally but not vertically?

Try to figure it out for yourself rather than look it up by googling. The art of figuring stuff out on your own is a lost art. People just google every question they have and don't exercise their minds anymore.
 
gorcorps said:
Mirrors... How do they work?
Click to expand...

lol. As it turns out most people don't know how magnets work either. I happen to be one of the lucky ones that do.

But seriously, how DO mirrors work? I mean, why is only the horizontal flipped and not the vertical?
 
disappoint said:
lol. As it turns out most people don't know how magnets work either. I happen to be one of the lucky ones that do.

But seriously, how DO mirrors work? I mean, why is only the horizontal flipped and not the vertical?
Click to expand...

lol... it's not flipped! You only perceive it as being flipped because you are thinking about your image as being another person, looking back at you.
It is not the same as another person standing in the mirror looking back at you.

It is simply light emitted by your face, bouncing off the mirror's specular surface, back into your eye.

It's not reversed at all.
 
A flat mirror doesn't flip the image at all. Your right hand stays on your right, your head stays at the top, and vice versa. When looking at another person facing you, their right hand is on your left. This is where the illusion of a flipped image comes from, because you're used to seeing the right hand on the left.
 
you need to start further back in the vision chain. we see upside down but our brain flips the image for us.
 
TheShiz said:
you need to start further back in the vision chain. we see upside down but our brain flips the image for us.
Click to expand...

That is why there has been studies on it. People have been given goggles to flip it back the right way. 😛
But the brain thinking it is so smart re-flips the image, to the wrong way obviously, and suddenly when removed everything is back right way again.
 
edro said:
lol... it's not flipped! You only perceive it as being flipped because you are thinking about your image as being another person, looking back at you.
It is not the same as another person standing in the mirror looking back at you.

It is simply light emitted by your face, bouncing off the mirror's specular surface, back into your eye.

It's not reversed at all.
Click to expand...

this. If you write 1 thru 5 and hold it in front of a mirror, it seems reversed since if it was another person holding the paper the paper would have been rotated. It's your expectation for the imagine to be rotated that makes it seem like the image is flipped.
 
disappoint said:
They are weird. Why do mirrors reverse, or flip the image horizontally but not vertically?

Try to figure it out for yourself rather than look it up by googling. The art of figuring stuff out on your own is a lost art. People just google every question they have and don't exercise their minds anymore.
Click to expand...

Son, you are disappoint.
 
It is flipped. But it's not flipped horizontally. And it's not flipped vertically. Point at the mirror. You'll see your reflection pointing the other direction. That's the dimension it's flipped in.

If you could take everything you see in the mirror and turn it inside-out, it would look like its mirror image. You can do that with thin paper: look at it from the back side.
 
What the hell are you talking about. All photons are getting reflected at the same angle regardless of horizontal versus vertical.

Lay down on the floor with the mirror and then ponder your question again.
 
edro said:
lol... it's not flipped! You only perceive it as being flipped because you are thinking about your image as being another person, looking back at you.
It is not the same as another person standing in the mirror looking back at you.

It is simply light emitted by your face, bouncing off the mirror's specular surface, back into your eye.

It's not reversed at all.
Click to expand...

lol it is flipped. See this pic:
Reverse_ambulance_with_Star_of_Life.jpg


The text "Ambulance" is reversed so that the rear view mirror can reverse it again and you can read it in your rear view mirror. The mirror is magic! :biggrin:
 
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Matthiasa said:
That is why there has been studies on it. People have been given goggles to flip it back the right way. 😛
But the brain thinking it is so smart re-flips the image, to the wrong way obviously, and suddenly when removed everything is back right way again.
Click to expand...

TheShiz said:
you need to start further back in the vision chain. we see upside down but our brain flips the image for us.
Click to expand...

No. Your brain isn't flipping the image. The mirror does that.

Take a picture of the mirror with a camera. Print out the photo. Now look at the photo. You are no longer looking at a mirror yet the image is still a mirror image. Did your camera's "brain" work like yours and flip the image? NO. The mirror did that!
 
ChAoTiCpInOy said:
Remember. When you look at yourself in a mirror. You're looking through a time portal.
Click to expand...

And I thought VCR tapes were time portals because they recorded events in the past. It turns out they were just VCR tapes. You know what Sigmund Freud said about erector sets? Yeah me neither. But sometimes an erector set is just an erector set.

erector-set-empire-state-bu.jpg


gnomish_erector_set.jpg
 
edro said:
lol... it's not flipped! You only perceive it as being flipped because you are thinking about your image as being another person, looking back at you.
It is not the same as another person standing in the mirror looking back at you.

It is simply light emitted by your face, bouncing off the mirror's specular surface, back into your eye.

It's not reversed at all.
Click to expand...

What's hilarious about this is that you looked up the answer. And you came in here laughing out loud at anyone that doesn't know the answer as if it was obvious to you. But you still don't really get it if you say the image is not flipped. It is indeed flipped.
 
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