(Science Trek music) JOAN CARTAN-HANSEN, HOST: Scientists have lots of uses for mirrors, but not all mirrors are the same.
Plane mirrors are flat.
They are the ones you see in your bathroom.
Scientists use plane mirrors in microscopes to reflect light so they can see very small things.
Have you ever seen yourself in a funhouse mirror?
These mirrors are specially designed.
Light coming in gets bent and you see a distorted image.
Concave mirrors curve inward.
They can be used to make thing larger.
Scientists use concave mirrors in large telescopes.
On the other hand, convex mirrors are thinner in the middle and bend light outward.
Drivers use convex mirrors in their side mirrors.
By the way, your reflection in a mirror only appears to be reversed.
That's because your brain is used to seeing faces turned 180 degrees.
Light bounces off the mirror and is reflected back the way it came.
So, the image is reflected, not rotated the way our brain usually expects.
So, an image in a mirror appears to be reversed.
For more information about light and color, check out the Science Trek website.
You'll find it at Science Trek dot org.