Mirror image

[lindagarrette]

Left and right are reversed in your mirror image but why aren't you upside down? I think Feynmenn posed this to his students but I forgot and can't figure out the answer. I think it has to do with optics and the brain.

[Uncle Martin]

A convex lens inverts an image, our eyes use this type of lens. Our brain corrects the inverted image received by our eyes. Actually, our eyes perceive the whole mirror as upside down. The image in the mirror isn't reversed. Your right side is on the right side of the image. The mirror just reflects the photons striking it's surface. Comparing a mirror with a lens is analagous to comparing apples and oranges.

[Bo]

mirrors do no flipping or so (as lenses do) in fact we still see the right hand moving up (it is to the right if we look at it) but because the mirror lets us look from the opposite side, that is now the left hand of the person (you in general). Just lik if you sit on the train. If you raise your right hand and a person opposite of you his left, that will be the hand on the same side of the train.
Bo