Advanced Reflections
All light will reflect off a mirror at the same angle it enters in relation to the normal Even curved mirrors
Convex Mirror A convex mirror is a mirror that is curved out towards you The back of a spoon is a convex mirror
Incident Ray Normal
Incident Ray Normal Reflected Ray
Concave Mirror A concave mirror is a mirror that is curved in away from you The inside of a spoon is a concave mirror
Incident Ray Normal
Incident Ray Normal Reflected Ray
Parabolic Mirrors A special type of concave mirror is a parabolic mirror As the last diagram showed, all light rays coming into the mirror are reflected to one location This focuses all the light at one point Starting with a light source at the focus point, all reflected rays would be parallel This is used in flashlights like a MagLite
Additional Uses A satellite dish works like the concave mirror, only it is reflecting all the microwave signals from a satellite to the receiver in the arm of the dish Car Lights, Microscopes, Dentistry
Seeing a Mirror Image MIRRORMIRROR
Light coming from the object (incident) reflect off the mirror and come to your eye At the back of your eye, the retina converts these light waves into a signal processed by the brain and seen as an image The brain thinks the image is actually behind the mirror, and smaller than the actual image
Reflection; Image Formation by a Plane Mirror What you see when you look into a plane (flat) mirror is an image, which appears to be behind the mirror.
Formation of Images by Concave Mirror
Reflection; Image Formation by a Convex