This type of curved mirror is called a convex mirror.

Push the sides of the mirror back so the middle bulges out toward you.Do they look identical? Are the size and color the same? Do they appear to stand at the same location? Compare the reflection of the object in the mirror to the object.

Can you see the reflection in the mirror? If your object is skinny and tall, lay it on its side.

Place a small object on the table in front of the mirror. Turn your mirror on its side so the long side rests on the table, mirrored side facing you.If needed, use glue to keep the skewers in place.The skewers should stick straight up from the flip-flop. Carefully stick one skewer through the mirroring paper into the flip-flop an inch or so from the right edge, and stick the second skewer a few centimeters from the left edge of the flip-flop.Place the rectangle of mirroring paper on top with the mirroring side facing up.Lay the flip-flop on the table in landscape orientation (so that the long side is parallel to the side of the table), sole side up.To make a bendable mirror, cut a rectangle of your mirroring paper to cover the sole of the flip-flop (or other backing you will use).Stainless steel cups, pots, ladles, etc.Stainless steel spoon, as new as possible (optional).(If you are using aluminum foil, it is helpful to choose brightly colored objects.) Small colorful objects, such as figurines, small toys, a battery, an eraser, etc.If unavailable, use an old insole or thick cardboard. New, unwrinkled aluminum foil can be used, but because the images are fuzzier, the observations will not be as clear. Mirroring paper, available from a craft or paper supply store.But do they always give an accurate representation of how you or the objects behind you look? Try the activity to see how mirrors can fool you! Mirrors make it possible to see a picture of yourself or of objects that are behind you. Shiny surfaces that are not perfectly smooth can lead to blurry or fuzzy pictures. This results in a neat image on the retina and thus a clearly reconstructed picture. In addition, they have a very smooth surface and are usually flat, causing light to reflect in an orderly way, reflecting a good but 'mirror image' of objects. Mirrors reflect almost all of the light hitting their surface. In other words, the incident and reflected ray make a perfectly symmetrical V shape, with the normal as the line of symmetry. In this case, the ray of light approaching the surface is known as 'the incident ray.' If the incident ray strikes the reflective surface at a particular angle, the reflected ray leaves the surface at the same angle-but is located at the other side of the normal. The same principle applies to light reflecting (or bouncing back) from a surface. If you drop the ball at an angle to this normal, it will bounce back at the other side of the normal, but with the same angle to the normal. This direction is called 'the normal' to the surface. If the floor is flat and you drop the ball straight down, the ball will hit the floor and reverse direction, bouncing straight up. Light reflecting off of a surface is kind of like a ball bouncing on a floor. As a result, your brain might reconstruct a picture that looks different than the original object your brain might have been fooled! Your brain still runs the usual reconstruction process, treating the image as if it were created by rays that travelled in a straight line. Although a light ray usually travels in a straight line, in some cases it can change direction first-for example, when a light ray enters or leaves a transparent material, such as water, or bounces off a shiny material, such as a mirror. One assumption is that the light rays traveled in a straight line from the object to the eye. The brain makes a few assumptions in this process of reconstructing a picture. From that input of light, the brain uses the eyes' signals to reconstruct a picture of the object. We see an object when light reflected from the object shines into our eyes. Try it out and see what funny reflections you can make! Have you ever visited a house of mirrors and seen a wacky-looking version of yourself? In this activity you can construct your own miniature house of mirrors.

Metal reflection images