Mirror Flippin’

By Anupum Pant

This one is a tough one to wrap your head around but it is amazing. Haven’t you ever thought why mirrors flip everything horizontally and not vertically. Like if you raise your right hand the mirrored image of you raises its left hand…and it doesn’t instead put down the hand. The vertical stuff remains the same, while the horizontal stuff gets inverted.

A mirror is the same in the vertical direction and the horizontal direction. Nor does it have a mind of its own. So, how does it figure out what’s horizontal and what’s vertical? Or does it?

Try this. Hold an arrow in front of the mirror. Point it right, the mirror does the same. Left, up or down, the mirror does the same. That’s it. Now point it towards the mirror, the mirror points towards you. So, it’s the z axis that gets inverted. If you think about it, it is pretty amazing!

Physics girl explains it much better in her video…

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