Mirror Reflection Question

[Belly]

Everyone knows that when you look in the mirror and close your left eye your reflection shows you that your right eye is closed but when you scratch your chin with your left hand the reflection does not show you scratching the top of your head with your right hand? Why is that?

 

[Belly]

How old are you?

Old enough to know better but unfortunately I don't

 

[Belly]

:/

Because your eyes are on either side of your face.

So are you head and your chin if you turn your head 90 degrees!

Come on guys this is a serious question

 

[Belly]

How come when you look in the back of a spoon your reflection is normal but when you look in the front you're flipped?

Hey I haven't got a spoon here at the moment but have a quick at your reflection and then scratch your chin with your left hand and tell me what you see?

 

[Belly]

Why does it hurt when I pee?

Bang, Bang = Clap, Clap

Have you tried peeing against a mirror by chance? Now if you hold your member in your right hand and.....................

 

[Belly]

Actually after re-reading it I guess what he's asking is why mirrors only work horizontally and not vertically - i.e., why isn't our image upside-down as well as left-to-right.

Yes I think your right Mirrors only work horizontally but it would appear that spoons reflect both horizontally and vertically. Goodness knows about reflectors in public urinals judging by other replies.

 

[Belly]

The mirror only reflects your actions, there isn't a mirror person hiding inside doing the opposite of what you do.


You're right about the image on the retina being inverted and the brain interpreting it the correct way up, .

I'm NOT conviced about the retina bit, because your retina is in your eye and if you look in a mirror you cannot see your eyeballs move but you can see an eye close, so maybe there is someone hiding upside down in the mirror?

 

[Belly]

Put another mirror behind you and then look in the mirror in front of you and you will be the right way around. look to the side a bit and you will see lots of you as a reflection of your reflection....Count how many of you, you see and get back to us...lol

*Edit*...The first bit isnt right...You will see the back of your head


Dan

Hey I tried that but when I scratched my chin with my left hand, it didn't show me scratching the top of my head with my right.

 

[Belly]

It's because top and bottom (as labels for the ends of the Z axis in 3D space) are absolute. Left and Right are more relative as there's no specific direction which way 'left' points in without a subjective reference. A better term would be East and West, because in a mirror image, your 'eastern' arm is still on the eastern side of you. Bugger all to do with the fact your eyes are on the horizontal I'm afraid. Try shutting one eye and notice the fact that a person with one eye in the middle of their face sees the same.

*edit* found this on groups:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Some Guy
Let the mirror be at the end of a hallway leading north.

You face the mirror.

Your mirror image faces south. This makes sense, because the mirror
faces south, and so the direction _perpendicular_ to the mirror is
special.

Your right hand, which is on your east side, is also on the east side
of your mirror image...

just as your head, which is on top of you, is on the top of your
mirror image.

So, considering you and your mirror image in absolute coordinates,
neither up and down nor east and west are reversed: north and south
are reversed, which are special, because that axis is the one
perpendicular to the mirror, the other two being parallel to its
surface.

Normally, though, you don't talk about your "east" hand or your "west"
hand. Instead, you talk about your right hand and your left hand.
Right and left aren't absolute directions, the way up and down (or
east and west) are; instead, they are relative directions. They're
defined in terms of up and down and front and back (look at an object
from its front - hence, you are looking in its relative "back"
direction: right is 90 degrees counterclockwise from up, left is 90
degrees clockwise from up).

So, when you are facing the mirror, what happens makes sense: up and
down stay the same, but since north and south, corresponding to front
and back, are reversed in your image, the relative direction "right",
for your image, points to the image of your _left_ hand.

Suppose you weren't facing the mirror, but looking sideways. Then
right and left would be reversed in a "real" sense, but that wouldn't
make a difference: one still sees right and left as reversed, because
one maps oneself on to one's image by performing a rotation with a
constant vertical axis. Because that's a kind of motion people do in
real life more often than, say, backflips.

Thanx Growse, yes this is so simple I wonder why I didn't think of it myself
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