Act I, Scene 8 – Instructor

This scene is very open-ended. The figure below shows one possible investigation.

A person is looking at his or her reflection in a convex spherical mirror whose radius is ten inches from a distance of ten inches. The figure below shows the results of an analysis based on the ideas we’ve been discussing.

One interesting observation is that the reflection appears to be quite close, much closer than it would be if the mirror were flat. Note the red dots that represent where the reflection of the two eyes would be if the mirror were flat. Your brain judges distance using various clues. One clue is size and this clue tells us that the reflection is further than it would be if the mirror was flat. This clue is the reason why “objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear.”