Reflection (196) : Contest Entry : Reflection of light through spherical mirrors.

Hello, my dear hive community members. How are you doing today? It's another chilly morning. Today, I woke up early to find beautiful reflection situations. I am a physics postgraduate and teach high school students. So I took my equipment with me and started moving on the terrace. The sun has just come up from the east and my house is west-facing. But still, through the gates of my balcony, some sunlight is entering. I was curious to know about it.

I went out of my balcony to find that from which mirror is its reflection. But the thing which I found was very interesting. I was reflecting on tiles a house east-facing house and then through laws of reflection it recreates its path towards my house.

From what we understand about the concept of smooth and diffused surfaces. The tiles are smooth but the linings on it make it a diffused surface. Because of this, it is not focused and its strength or intensity is reduced.

Now I went on the terrace with my convex and concave mirror. Now my idea is to capture the reflection of light through spherical mirrors.
Can you spot the difference?

Image 1

Image 2

Mirrors are placed at the same distance from the same flower but still, we get two different reflections. The size of Image 2 is greater than the Size of Image 1.

The reason behind this is that in Image 1 mirror used is the convex mirror and in in Image 2 mirror used is the concave mirror.

Convex mirrors always make virtual and erect images at any distance from the object while concave mirrors make magnified virtual and erect images only when the object is placed between the pole and focus.

Also, another property of a concave mirror is that it can focus the light and is hence known as a converging mirror.

This focused light can never be achieved from the convex mirror as it diverges the light and will not focus it.

So this is how we can understand reflection that happens in daily life. The word reflection is not only related to light or images but also to our ideas and actions. What we learn see and capture by our brain will reflect in our ideas and actions. So it's our understanding of what to capture.

with this, I conclude my words. God bless you.

Thankyou