Science · 6 pages · 12 min

How a mirror flips left and right

A flat mirror reverses front and back, which we then read as left and right.

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From the opening

A flat mirror reverses the direction straight into the glass, the line from your nose to the mirror. It does not swap the hand on the east side of the room with the hand on the west side. The opening covers the axis the glass actually reverses, why the facing person misleads, and why lettering runs backward.

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Inside

The axis the glass actually reverses
Why the facing person misleads
Why lettering runs backward
What a second mirror undoes
Where the idea stops applying
A distinction worth keeping

Sources

Mirror reversal as a front-to-back inversion
The imagined rotation that creates a left-right reading

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How a mirror flips left and right

From the opening

Inside

Sources

Also on the desk