Plane & Curved Mirrors

Introduction to Mirrors

Mirrors are surfaces that reflect light to form images. They can be classified into two main types:

• Plane Mirrors: Flat surfaces that reflect light uniformly.
• Curved Mirrors: Spherical surfaces that can be either concave or convex.

Plane Mirrors

Plane mirrors follow the laws of reflection:

• Law 1: The angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection.
• Law 2: The incident ray, the reflected ray, and the normal all lie in the same plane.

Images formed by plane mirrors have the following characteristics:

• Virtual and upright
• Same size as the object
• Laterally inverted
• Located as far behind the mirror as the object is in front

Curved Mirrors

Curved mirrors can be either concave or convex:

• Concave Mirrors: Reflecting surface is curved inward like a cave.
• Convex Mirrors: Reflecting surface is curved outward.

The characteristics of images formed by curved mirrors depend on the object's position relative to the mirror's focal point and center of curvature.

Mirror Formula

The mirror formula relates the object distance \\(u\\), image distance \\(v\\), and the focal length \\(f\\) of a mirror:

$$\frac{1}{f} = \frac{1}{v} + \frac{1}{u}$$

Magnification

The magnification \\(m\\) of a mirror is given by:

$$m = \frac{h_i}{h_o} = \frac{v}{u}$$

Where \\(h_i\\) is the image height and \\(h_o\\) is the object height.