Now I'm no idiot and I know that mirrors are basically optical illusions and they don't really show how things look in real life, but I just don't understand how THEY make them. Are they man made?
2007-12-30 14:43:10 · 6 answers · asked by stephendavis2 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
A mirror generally has a flat conducting surface which shorts out (cancels) the electric field of incoming light (electromagnetic radiation). The surface current responsible for such cancellation transmits its own EM radiation, which is the reflected light.
Mirrors are usually made by coating a plate of glass with a very thin layer of metal, usually aluminum these days, by chemical precipitation or evaporating the metal in vacuum.
2007-12-30 17:04:06 · answer #1 · answered by Dr. R 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Throughout most of human history, mirrors consisted of highly polished pieces of metal, and were hard to come by.
But for the past few hundred years, mirrors have been made out of glass, which has one side "silvered".
To create a mirror, a layer of highly reflected material is deposited on the back of the mirror. This can be a solution containing silver nitrate, molten silver, aluminum, or if it's from the victorian era, it might even contain mercury.
Most household mirrors are silvered on the back and then the metalloid coating is covered with something to protect it. Mirrors for telescopes and other optical applications are silvered on the front because otherwise the glass would distort the light.
Both mirrors work under the same principal though. The electrons in the reflective coating absorb the light that strikes them, and then re-emitts the same way. This is like throwing a baseball at an umpire and having the umpire throw the ball back with almost exactly the same speed and have it take almost exactly the same path (in the case of planar mirrors)
2007-12-30 23:07:08 · answer #2 · answered by minuteblue 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Mirrors DO show things in real life accurately if the mirror is made accurately. The flatter, the better. To gather light in a telescope, you want a perfect paraboloid surface to focus all light to a point. Polishing glass or aluminum surfaces is the method to make a mirror, then coating it with a very thin layer of aluminum or other reflective material makes it shiny.
2007-12-30 23:08:51 · answer #3 · answered by Thomas E 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
mirrors make images basically by reflecting signal/light. geometrically, its images depend on the reflecting surface. flat or curve and so on.of course it is man made. u can make mirrors too..paint a very fine and well attached to mirror silvery coating(whatever that reflects light) on a side of a flat glass then cover it with black paint..then u have a mirror on the other side.. but the mirror that we produced manually might not be as good as what we buy..very fine works ensure perfect optical difference in distance thus ensuring exact constructing image distance on the desired point(planar as we wish)...so we wanna see a plane surface of our face exactly we are..so the optical wave wont destructively interfere and we wont see the nose or its slightly longer or shorter(image defect)..thats all i can say..feedbacks appreciated.
2007-12-30 23:40:30 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Can someone explain the technology behind mirrors to me?
the technology behind a mirror is slivering
of course they are man made
2007-12-30 23:46:30 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Yes, they are man-made. Everything reflects light, mirrors just reflect it more.
2007-12-30 22:49:18 · answer #6 · answered by Alex H 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋