What is the difference between a mirror and an ordinary surface with respect to reflection of light from them?
Short answer plzzzzz
Answers
Answer:
Mirror has a very highly polished surface than an ordinary surface. So, reflection of light is more in a plane miror.
Difference between a mirror and an ordinary surface is that the reflection of light from a mirror is SPECULAR while the reflection of light from an ordinary surface is DIFFUSIVE.
1)Imagine a lake and mountain scene.On a calm day you can see the reflection of the mountain in the water.In this case the water is reflecting light from the mountain specularly and acting as a mirror .
2)Now imagine it's winter and the lake is frozen.Now you cannot see the reflection of the mountain on the ice because unlike water ice reflects light diffusively.
3)one important point to remember is that whether specular or diffusive both the reflections obeys Snell's law of reflection .
4)So in summary when you can see your reflection on a surface than that is SPECULAR REFLECTION and when you can only see the surface but not your reflection on it then that is DIFFUSIVE REFLECTION.