What causes a miror to reflect an image?!!?

Question

yeah, can you make it so a ''10 year old'' can understand it? thanks!

Answer 1

Light bounces off of a mirror instead of being sucked into it.

Answer 2

Regular mirrors: The surface is shiny enough to reflect the surrounding light, meaning you can see a reflection of light. Since colours are waves of light, they get reflected too, which explains why you can see images, as it is the colour of the images that are reflected in the mirror and then the eye reinterpits it as an image.

One-way mirrors (like you see in movies where the interrogate criminals in a room): The physics here are a little tricky, since it's a sheet of glass that has been coated with an EXTREMELY thin coat of metal, which alows certain percentages of light to pass while others are reflected. The easiest way to explain it, is to simply say, the side that points towards the most lit room acts a mirror, the other side as a window.

P.S. Mirrors have nothing to do with refraction, refraction is when you change the speed of a lightwave, through the use of a medium (e.g. water), which a regular mirror cannot do.

Answer 3

An image in a miror is like a reflection or refraction of light. This is similar to when you look into a river and see an image reflection, this is due to beams of light and rays that bounce from one location to another. Do you have a light prism this behaves in the opposite by refraction of light. If you need further demostration the science museum may provide more information also research light reflection and refraction.

Answer 4

The key is the reflecting surface is very smooth, so that parallel rays bouncing of the surface stay parallel. This keeps the reflected images sharp. Any object which is not completely transparent can be made into a mirror if it will buff down to a smooth finish.

Answer 5

The mirror reflects the image which is light.