We only have to look as far as the nearest bathroom to find an example of an image formed by a mirror. Images in flat mirrors are the same size as the object and are located behind the mirror. Like lenses, mirrors can form a variety of images.
For example, dental mirrors may produce a magnified image, just as makeup mirrors do. Security mirrors in shops, on the other hand, form images that are. The reflected rays seem to originate from behind the mirror, locating the virtual image.
Now let us consider the focal length of a mirror-for example, the concave spherical mirrors in Figure 2. Rays of light that strike the surface follow the law of reflection. Images in flat mirrors are the same size as the object and are located behind the mirror.
Like lenses, mirrors can form a variety of images. For example, dental mirrors may produce a magnified image. We will use the law of reflection to understand how mirrors form images, and we will find that mirror images are analogous to those formed by lenses.
Figure 25.38 helps illustrate how a flat mirror forms an image. Two rays are shown emerging from the same point, striking the mirror, and being reflected into the observer's eye. A convex mirror is a diverging mirror (f is negative) and forms only one type of image.
It is a case 3 image-one that is upright and smaller than the object, just as for diverging lenses. Figure 9 8 2 7 (a) uses ray tracing to illustrate the location and size of the case 3 image for mirrors. How a mirror forms images and how to distinguish between real and virtual images, and the different types of mirrors and the images they produce.
Plane mirrors produce images with a number of distinguishable characteristics. Images formed by plane mirrors are virtual, upright, left-right reversed, the same distance from the mirror as the object's distance, and the same size as the object. We will use the law of reflection to understand how mirrors form images, and we will find that mirror images are analogous to those formed by lenses.
Figure 1 helps illustrate how a flat mirror forms an image. Two rays are shown emerging from the same point, striking the mirror, and being reflected into the observer's eye.