Imagine you are standing in front of a mirror, facing it.
Raise your left hand. Raise your right hand. Look at your
reflection. When you raise your left hand your reflection
raises what appears to be his right hand. But when you tilt
your head up, your reflection does too, and does not appear
to tilt his/her head down. Why is it that the mirror appears
to reverse left and right, but not up and down?
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Answer / julleisalmaldom
The definition of left and right depends on the observer and
is reversed when facing the opposite direction. The
definition of up and down does not depend on the orientation
of the observer.
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 32 Yes | 6 No |
Answer / asad
because there is only lateral inversion in mirror not upside down inversion.
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 24 Yes | 4 No |
Answer / brian kendig
A mirror doesn't reverse left and right; it reverses front
and back. When you raise your right hand, the image in the
mirror also raises its hand on the right side of the mirror.
The only discrepancy is that you interpret that to be the
"left hand" of the inside-out image in the mirror.
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 10 Yes | 4 No |
Answer / jubin
divide your face(only imagination)into two parts..
in this case when u tilt ur head up,both the left and the
right part of your face move upwards simultaneously..
this is similar to the case when we lift our hands up..
so when u lift ur right side of the head its reflection
appears to be in the right side,,but in upward
direction..same is the case for the left side of the head..
and ofcourse both the parts of the head move simultaneously
upwards nd hence the image also moves upwards..
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 7 Yes | 6 No |
Answer / fern
if you place the mirror on the floor it will appear to reverse up down as well. Look at a reflective pond for an illustration of this point. The light rays that reach the eye from the mirror have taken the shortest path from the image to the mirror, a mirror, unlike a pin-hole camera, reflects the light rays.
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 5 Yes | 4 No |
Answer / damon
Answer #7 is the most correct, but it doesn't fully explain
the "discrepancy" it mentions. A complete answer to this
rather deep question should also explain why the left-right
direction appears to be "special". Humans perceive a left-
right swap instead of an up-down swap because humans are
left-right symmetric. A radially symmetric being (e.g. a
one-eyed worm staring the mirror head-on) would probably
not perceive a left-right swap OR an up-down swap. Let me
explain mathematically.
As answer #7 mentions, the mirror actually swaps front and
back. As it happens, this is mathematically equivalent to
swapping left and right (plus a 180 degree rotation along
the vertical axis), and it's also equivalent to swapping up
and down (plus a 180 degree rotation along the horizontal
axis), among other options. We humans instinctively choose
the first option because we're left-right symmetric. The
worm might just as easily choose the second one -- or
neither.
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 0 Yes | 1 No |
Answer / riyaz
This one messes with your head a little. The trick is that left and right are relative to your body, where up and down are relative to the earth. To understand what I’m saying look at what’s on your left and then turn around. Now what’s on your left is actually the complete opposite. But if you do the same for what’s above you it doesn’t change. So the answer here is – it’s due to the definition of left and right and up and down.
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 0 Yes | 1 No |
Answer / tase
when the person lift the right hand the mirror also lift the
REFLECTION of the right hand, when the person lift the left
hand the reflection will also lift the REFLECTION of the
left hand, and finally when the person list his head the
mirror also lift the REFLECTION of the head. The reflection
in the mirror is by no means identical with the person , the
one someone see in the mirror is not the same thing that
someone that will sit instead of the mirror will see you.
So the mirror just "appears" to reverse left and right but
actually the "mirror"'s left is not identical with our left so.
Or we can think like this: Since the problem said that our
left means the mirror's right then using the same approach
means that our UP is the mirror's DOWN, so wen we lift the
head UP the mirror image will lift the head DOWN.
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 7 Yes | 19 No |
Answer / natarajan.p
the mirror will reflect only for the x-axis and it wont to
do so for the y-axis . hence it does not reverse for up and
down
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 17 Yes | 30 No |
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