Reflection Of Light In Plane Mirrors

Reflection is the bouncing of light off the surface that it strikes on.

Reflection of light in plane mirrors.

Images formed by a plane mirror are erect upright. A plane mirror is a mirror with a flat reflective surface. Images formed by a plane mirror are of same shape and size as that of an object. Images formed by a plane mirror are of same shape and size as that of an object.

A ray of light strikes a reflective plane surface at an angle of 42 o with the surface. The process of sending back the light waves after falling on the surface of an object is called a reflection of light. Through this experiment you will learn about the reflection from a plane mirror. There are rules for obtaining images from plane mirror.

To watch all subjects full videos click here. Learn more about the laws of reflection of light in detail. Reflection of light is the process of sending back the light rays which fall on the surface of an object. Reflection is the absorbing of light off the surface that it strikes on.

For light rays striking a plane mirror the angle of reflection equals the angle of incidence. Images formed by a plane mirror are erect upright. Unlike mirrors most natural surfaces are rough on the scale of the wavelength of light and as a consequence parallel incident light rays are reflected in many different directions or diffusely. The law of reflection can be used to understand the images produced by plane and curved mirrors.

Solved example for you. Therefore the angle of reflection is the angle between the reflected ray and the normal and a. Reflection is the bending of light off the surface that it strikes on. If the mirror is rotated through an angle φ the normal is rotated by an angle phi and thus the angle of incidence increases to θ φ.

The path of light is always a straight line and this single beam of light is called a ray of light. Consider a plane mirror and a fixed incident ray of light reflecting from the surface at an angle θ i. Images formed by a plane mirror are always virtual. Images formed by a plane mirror are always virtual.

The reflection of an object over a plane mirror forms images at many different places. The angle of the incidence is the angle between the incident ray and the surface normal an imaginary line perpendicular to the surface.