Then introducing the optics of mirrors, an obvious place to start is comparing the appearance of objects to their images. Image distance and magnification are usually covered the most thoroughly, but the handedness of images in various shapes of mirrors has also been discussed in The Physics Teacher and elsewhere. However, there has not been a systematic treatment of handedness. We describe a general criterion in terms of axis inversions for whether or not handedness is preserved by a mirror. We consider how the rotation of mirrors affects the orientation of their images. We also make some suggestions for introducing these topics in introductory courses.
展开▼
