Light/physics question

[geekwithstyle]

This might sound like a dumb question at first.. but it got me thinking for awhile. My professor in mechanics in 3rd year asked the class this question, and no one was able to give him a satisfactory answer, so he left it to us to figure it out. So here goes

Comments

[thr33pointone4]

Well, don't our eyes see things upside down anyway? So maybe when you look into a mirror, you WOULD see yourself upside down, but you don't because of the backwards effect that the mirror has- so you see yourself right side up.

I don't know.

[geekwithstyle]

Hmm.. maybe. But if that were true, wouldn't we see the rest of the world upside-down also? You're right, we do see things upside down, but I think that our brains then flip it so that we see the world right-side-up again. So confusing!
:p

[theobon]

An interesting phenomenon is that if you where glasses that invert images (so you now see the world upside down) after a period of time, average is 3 days, you will no longer view the world through the glasses as upside down but where you take of the glasses you will. Reverting back take an average of 1 day (I assume there is a correlation between how long you have worn the glasses and how long it takes to revert back but it has not been tested).

[sexyvanilla]

I cant remember who did that experiment.

[anonymous]

The image isn't actually flipped horizontally at all. This is a psychological impression due to the fact that we are used to looking at faces where their left is on our right and there right is on our left. We therefor interpet the image as being rotated 180 degrees around the z-axis (where x is to the right and y is in front) to corrolate it with our view of other people. As the transformation is around the z-axis there is no change to z values and therefor we don't interpet the image as upside-down.

Forgot to log it.

[theobon]

Please reply to this comment so that I will get a notification.

Re: Forgot to log it.

[geekwithstyle]

Yes! Thank you! This is the scientific explanation I was looking for... that's exactly what I was thinking in my head, I just couldn't find the proper words.

[trekkanacious]

mirror: something that gives a TRUE representation

in other words, what you see is what you really get.

what you see left in the mirror is your left. what you see right in the mirror is your right, a TRUE reflection.

-How come you don't see yourself upside down? because its a TRUE reflection, your standing upright. you want to see yourself upside down, stand on your hands.

[geekwithstyle]

True enough. Good explanation, thanks for that!

[bogwarrior89]

Only concave mirrors flip images. look at the back of the spoon (convex) and you see a true reflection. Look in the front (bowl, concave) and the image is flipped.