Why is your reflection upside down on th concave side of th spoon n not on th other?!?!?!? use simple words...
2006-12-22 03:55:32 · 10 answers · asked by misslolapants 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
You need diagrams as well as words to explain this.
Try this http://oscar.iitb.ac.in/PDF_Files/mirror.pdf
2006-12-22 04:15:14 · answer #1 · answered by DriverRob 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Think of the angles that the light will take when reflected off the spoon. On the concave side, the light hitting the lower portion is directed upward and the light hitting the upper portion is directed downward. Hence, you see the top of the image as the bottom and the bottom as the top.
The convex side of the spoon merely elongates the image by reflecting the light off the top further up and the light at the bottom further down.
Good question.
2006-12-22 04:08:03 · answer #2 · answered by LeAnne 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
The side of a spoon where the soup goes is a concave surface. Because it is not a plane surface, when the lights reflect on it, the rays criss-cross each other at the focal point. They converge.
The other side is a convex surface. When the light reflects on it, the rays go their separate ways and diverge from each other.
That seemingly small difference is not so small. Because of that converging behaviour, the rays invert the image, and that's why you see yourself upside down.
2006-12-22 04:38:58 · answer #3 · answered by kihela 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The easiest way to understand this is to draw what's called a ray diagram. Basically you draw how the light reflects off the surface of the spoon.
In simple terms, you are upside down when you look in a spoon because, the light from your head travels in a straight line to the spoon. When it hits the surface of the spoon, it reflects off perpendicular to the surface of the spoon. Perpendicular means straight up from a surface...like your body is perpendicular to the surface when you are standing on a flat surface. Since the spoon is curved, when the light reflects perpendicular to the surface at the very spot it strikes, it's directed in a diagonalish direction back towards you.
The light from your head travels straight, strikes the surface, and reflects back at you downwards, the light from your feet travels straight, strikes the surface (albeit a different point on the sufrace than the light from you head of course) and is reflected in a perpendicular direction which sends it diagonally upward back at you.So this flips the image. When the light rays come back together again as they approach you you see an upside down image.
2006-12-22 08:15:25 · answer #4 · answered by minuteblue 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
aww I almost cried!!!! haha I'm so happy TH doesn't think their fans are all stalkers. It's very good to know that they know that their true fans are out their and supporting them and it's good for us (the true fans) to know that we"ll never be put in the same category as those stalkers. Thank you so much for posting this!!!! XD
2016-05-23 15:47:05 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Try turning the spoon upside down
2006-12-22 04:11:21 · answer #6 · answered by gigabit 2 · 0⤊ 3⤋
funny thing that. I ate a trifle the other day with a spoon and rather than use the concave side upwards as I would normally I turned the spoon upside down. My trifle kept falling off! Weird.
2006-12-22 04:04:02 · answer #7 · answered by Jimbo 2 · 0⤊ 5⤋
because of the angle of the spoon. it doesn't reflect in a direct line like a flat mirror. therefore, you see an inverted image
2006-12-22 04:03:54 · answer #8 · answered by Super G 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
i didn't know that, just tried it. woohay i have a new party trick.
2006-12-23 09:02:55 · answer #9 · answered by cheekylinzi 1 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Sorry ?
2006-12-22 04:00:21 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 5⤋