why are ordinary plane mirrors coated on the back instead of the front. When would this coating be undesirable
408234
I agree with okoko. The glass protects the reflective silver from scratching. It would probably be undesirable if you wanted to prevent ghost images - light has a refractive index AND partially and transmits and partially reflects the light incident upon it.
792242
They are almost the same size, you are right  - the reflective image is smaller. The reason it looks bigger is because you are looking at a more or less 2-dimensional image. You have to physically look from the top to the bottom. I don't know if this is a good example, but think of a hockey goalie protecting his goal. The further out he moves, the more of the goal he covers. He looks like a giant to the shooter because he has to move his head to see from his head to his feet. \nHere's one for you - how large vertically does a mirror have to be in order to see your total reflection? It doesn't matter how far away it is?
120576
Instead of getting such huge mirrors, you might be better off buying some 12" square mirror tiles and use them to make whatever size mirror you need. Admittedly they will show the seams between tiles, but they will be considerably less expensive and easier to obtain than mirrors of the size you are writing about.
226544
the moderns cameras have so many lens elements that it's easy to get reflection artifacts--even ones which don't "look like" reflection artifacts (which is to say you just don't really know what to look for).\n\nNot much you can do about them, except use a lens hood and hope for the best.
417677
For refractors, the most common problem is chromatic aberration. In this, you get little rainbows around bright objects and a blurrier image around others. This happens because the lenses act like prisms. All refractors are subject to this, but some *very* expensive ones have it less. They fix this by using more than one type of glass.\n\nFor reflectors, the main problem is spherical aberration. This is caused by the mirror not being a perfect paraboloid. It is much easier to grind a sphere than a paraboloid, and most mirrors are first ground to a spherical shape. If the subsequent grinding isn't done right, the resulting images will be blurrier than need be. For decent images, the mirror's shape has to be within 1/4 of a wavelength of light, and for a good image it should be correct to within 1/10 of a wavelength. Considering how small the wavelength of visible light is, you can see how hard that is.
593131
The incident ray is perpendicular to the surface of reflection.\nThen one has the least distance case.
818655
The glass is poured to the desired thickness, and then silver is applied to the back to give it's reflective surface.  It is then coated with another substance to prevent the light from passing all the way through.  You then see your reflection.\nIn a piece of two way mirror, the silver is applied to the front of the mirror and the other non-reflective substance is omitted.  Thus, you can see all the way through.\nOne good way to tell if you are looking at a piece of two way mirror, is to put your finger up to the glass.  If there is no 'space' between the tip of your finger and the glass...it may be 2-way.  If there is a 'space', it may be only one-way.\nNext time you go into a store, look around for mirrors that appear in the most unusual places.  More than likely, these are 2-way.
904698
It is the very complicated surface of the snowflakes.  Ice and water may be clear, but some light is reflected, and some gets transmitted.  In the case of snow flakes, which are ice cristals, there is so much surface to reflect off, and light transmitted leaving off the back will strike the next snowflake behind (or the next bit of the same snowflake, deeper in) and eventually reflect back.  Since the shape is so weird, no coherent reflection can be seen, hence no good mirrored surface.  But the light will come back looking the same color as going in, hence white.
1053233
the hot pavement creates a layer of hot air just above it.. and the cooler air above that make a difference in density barrier.. which reflects light... as long as it is below a specific angle <so you see the reflection from far off but not right at your feet>\n\nI think.. hehe
8756
Unless the reflective surface is perfect (which is impossible in the real world) the light will loose a little energy with each reflection (the mirror will heat up a little), and in a very short time the light will just get redder until it is merged into whatever infrared energy is inside the sphere.
459285
Photos capture an image of light.  And mirrors essentially reflect photons. We know that photons, particles of light, have wave/particle properties and when they are reflected off of an object, they are affected by the surface of the object of mirror. Look at your self on both side of a spoon.  The concave part, the one that is curved in, should have an upside down version of you, and on the otherside, convex, you will have an elongated version of yourself.  \nIf you look at the queston from a quantum phsyics perspective.  Every time you look in the mirror, you will see a different you. This is because you are actually seeing different light reflecting off a different surface.  \nI really dont know much about cameras, but thank God for photo shop.  Mirrors are a bad invention in my opinion.  People get caught up in having to maintain an external image that the rest of the world sees, when in reality the image of ourselves that we should really work on is the one inside our heads.  Anyways, I hope I answered your question to some extent.
67116
Its made that way as an anti-glare feature.\n\nThere's a full mirror behind a partial mirror.  The two mirrors are a few degrees apart either can be used.  The dimmer one is for night driving to cut glare from headlights.
614312
Its all to do with the reflection orf light on concave and convex mirrored surfaces.\n\nSee this web page app. half way down for a more detailed explanation.\n\nhttp://www.mic-d.com/curriculum/lightandcolor/reflection.html
62076
A\nB would be for a polished surface,\nC and D are never true (although on a macroscopic scale it can appear that they are).
217437
Not in the same way that light reflects. This is an important topic in X-Ray telescopes. See below!
149736
A conver mirror is diverging in nature.Ligh rays incident at its extreme corners gets diverged following laws of reflection.Hence if we draw the diagram we can clearly understand that the reflected rays follow a wider path.While in case of a plane mirror the divergence is not so large.The credit to this can be given to the cuvature in convex mirror
116013
do u mean speed? no, the magnitude is stillt he same but the direction is changed if and only if the mirror has a smooth surface. cause if it is not. there would be many angle of reflection