Question

How can you experimentally locate the image of an object made by a plane mirror?

Answer 1

Experiment: Finding the Position of a Virtual Image formed by a plain mirror.

1. The plane mirror:

The image visible in a plane mirror appears behind the mirror. it is a virtual image.
You will find its distance by parallax.

Place a fixed pin in front of the plane mirror. Place a second pin behind the mirror so that the top of the pin can be seen superimposed over the reflection when the eye is in line.
Keep only one eye open and move the eye from side to side.
Generally the reflection in the mirror will appear to move out of line with the pin behind the mirror.
Place the pin at different distances until the image in the mirror and the pin behind the mirror always coincide when the eye is moved.
Measure the distance of the object pin and the pin behind the mirror which is now at the distance of the virtual image within the mirror.

HOPE THIS HELPS :D

Answer 2

Place a blank piece of paper on the cardboard, and draw a straight line across the middle of the paper. Label this line "Mirror".

Support the mirror so that it will stand vertically using a block and a rubber band. Place the mirror on the paper so that its FRONT EDGE (where the reflection occurs) is on the mirror line.

Stick the pin into the paper in front of the mirror so that you can see its image in the mirror. Label this point "O1" (for object #1).

Sight along the straightedge at the IMAGE of the object pin in the mirror. Draw a line along the straightedge to record its position and label it "I1" (for Image #1).



DO NOT MOVE THE OBJECT PIN OR THE MIRROR! - Move your eye to another position in front of the mirror. Repeat step 4 to establish a second line pointing directly at the image. Be sure to label this line "I1" also.

The two lines that you have established should intersect at the location of the image - but how precisely have we located this image? A physicist is always trying to verify her measurements and establish their precision. One easy way to see how accurate your measurements are is to establish a third line as a check. Go back to step 4 again to establish this third line.

Now that this image has been located by three lines, you may move the object pin to another location. Label this position "O2". Now repeat steps 4 - 6 to locate the image of this pin. Label the image pins "I2". Be sure that you do not move the mirror from the mirror line!

After locating 2 or 3 objects, your paper will probably be pretty-well covered with lines and labels. Remove this paper, redraw the mirror line on a clean sheet, and continue. How many images should you locate? Well, you can't locate too many. Locate at least 10, if you have time. Try to locate your objects at a wide range of distances from the mirror - some fairly close, and some as far away as convenient on your paper.

Once the paper is removed from the cardboard and the mirror is out of the way, use a straightedge to carefully extend the lines until they intersect to locate the images. You may very well be surprised at the location of the image!

Draw a line between each object and its corresponding image. Carefully measure the distance (in centimeters) from each object and image to the mirror line, and the angle between the mirror line and the line connecting the image and object. In most cases, your 3 lines will not intersect in exactly the same place - in this case you will need to estimate ("eyeball") the point that you want to call the image position. Be sure to mark this position on your paper. Record your data in the data tableprovided.