When Raju lifted his right hand, his reflection in the plane mirror raised its left hand. Why?
Answers
Lateral inversion in a plane mirror (a flat mirror) means the apparent reversal of left and right in the mirror image compared with the object. Lateral means "sideways".
In fact, the mirror image is really a reversal of the the object in the direction perpendicular to the mirror's surface (called the normal). In a plane mirror, each point on the image is as far behind the mirror plane as the corresponding point on the object is in front. That's all there is to it in terms of the physics. However, we usually “see” a left-right reversal in the mirror image, rather than the real reversal. So, the psychology of perception is needed to explain lateral inversion properly. I discuss that below.
Because lateral inversion in a plane mirror (a flat mirror) means the apparent reversal of left and right in the mirror image compared with the object. Lateral means "sideways".