September 14, 2010 • 26 mins
Whether using polished metal surfaces or clear glass, human beings have enjoyed admiring their reflections for centuries. In this episode, Josh and Chuck reflect on the types, mind-melting physics, superstitions and rather interesting history of mirrors.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
(00:20):
We're about to talk about mirrors. I set up it's
a SINCU. How are you Were you in the mirrors
growing up? Now that we said, you know, I did
it sccinctly, We're gonna just blow like three minutes, right, No,
I was asking you if you were in the mirrors
in the mirrors growing up? Yeah, I mean that didn't
every kid go through a phase where they're like very
(00:41):
obsessed with their looks and mirrors and things. Oh yeah,
I was into myself. I wasn't in the mirrors. They
were just means to end, you know. Yeah, But I
like I was reading this and I kind of was
just thinking myself and remembering laughing about I remember being
like fifteen and like stopping to look at mirrors anytime
there was one to see what looks like. Yeah, and
now I just break them. I'd forgotten all about that
(01:02):
phase of my life though, until you just brought it up,
remember that. Yeah, it's nice to be able to not
look at a mirror. Like some days. I'll go out,
you know, after getting ready in the morning, and I
have no idea what I actually look like. But I'm
so and this is um this cross pollination with an
earlier podcast. I suffered from body dysmorphic disorder so badly
(01:24):
that I don't really know what I look like anyway.
I think I look a bit like theme from taxidermia.
What's that? It's not plusant? Okay, well you don't my friend.
I don't even know what he looks like, but I
can tell you don't look like him. I appreciate that, Chuck, Chuck,
do you want to hear what I had in store? Like?
(01:45):
I could not come up with an intro for this.
Let's Websters defines mirror. I'm kidding. I always going to
say something equally bad, though it was going to be
something along the lines with mirrors are ubiquitous. I've seen
at least six of them today. They weren't always that way, though, Chuck. Well,
(02:06):
it says in the article here the full length mirrors
have only been around four hundred years. That didn't seem right.
That's not right, No, um full length mirrors. There is
a type of full length mirror UM that has been
around for about four hundred years. Full length mirrors, as
far as I know, are mirrors capable of reflecting a
full image of a person, have been around since about
(02:27):
the first century a D. Actually, UM and mirrors us
using surfaces, polished surfaces to see our own reflection. UM
has been around since about six thousand BC. Yeah. The
earliest ones were found in Anatolia, Turkey, and they're polished obsidian. Yeah,
(02:48):
it's a volcanic glass. Yeah, so it's it's dark. That's interesting,
but it's still produced the best reflection, I guess at
the time. At the time, I mean, you gotta you
gotta go with what you what we have to work with, right, Well, yeah,
but then after that they led them to um like
silver and bronze and copper, polished polished reflection spasics and chuck.
I don't know if you've ever held a hunk of
(03:10):
of copper or bronze I haven't, or silver I have. Okay,
it's heavy, Yeah, it's real heavy. Right. So this actually
limited the size of mirrors for centuries, right, Yeah, And
they were just kind of decorative at first two right,
I think so. And you also had to be extremely
rich um to own one of these, right um. And
(03:32):
then around I think the Middle Ages, we became capable
of making glass, and all of a sudden it was
like mirror technology just takes a huge leap forward. Well true,
but not not super uh forward, because the sand was
pretty impure back then they used to make the glass.
So I think they, um they said in the article,
(03:53):
was until like the Renaissance that it kind of really
started becoming a little more polished, if you will, terrible.
And then the Venetians are who really you know with
a glass and everything. They just they just took in
ran with it. Well. Even still, if you successfully made
a mirror, um, it was probably extremely expensive as well
because they were so rare. The process of manufacturing a
(04:16):
mirror um very infrequently produced a usable mirror. That's what
you're doing was adhering um melted molten metal onto glass,
which almost always broke the glass. So when it didn't,
I'm sure you're just like, oh my god's the first
one in seven years? Right um? But that when I
(04:39):
was reading this article, I didn't really think about it.
That's what a mirror is, isn't it. I've even seen
the back of mirrors and been like others like metal
looks like spray painted on the back. That's exactly right.
And that was the process, um what's it called silver
ring that was invented by a guy named Justice von
Liebig and in a team thirty five. If you figured
(05:01):
out how to spray very thin layer of silver um
or aluminum on the back or on one side of
a glass, and they're, my friend, you have the modern mirror. Yeah,
and now they I think they make it now by
heating aluminum in a vacuum and kind of much the
same way or different methods, but the same same concept.
(05:22):
Go ahead, Well, I wanted to say when when you
were talking about the Renaissance, the Venetians were they? I
guess they had the secret of mirrors under wraps like
the Mason's very much so. Um. And if you were
a mirror maker and it got out that you had
told someone how to make mirrors, you were frequently killed. Right, Yeah,
(05:46):
trade secret. But when mirrors were introduced, um, when good
mirrors were introduced, not polished obsidian, things changed a little bit,
especially with art. Right. Yeah, I never really considered that,
but that it spawned something that would become a mark
of the art world, which is the self portrait. Right
before that, you couldn't draw yourself because you could not
see yourself. That's exactly right, And you could, but I
(06:09):
mean you're gonna use like maybe a pond or a
piece of polished medal or something like that. Imagine like
going out and looking at a pond and going back
and sitting down now as opposed to having a mirror there. Yes,
really simplified it. It's also not coincidental that UM good
mirrors came about at the same time that UM linear
perspective was introduced into art. Yeah, there's a guy named
(06:32):
UM Filippo Brunus Brunelleschi. Nice Chuck, thank you for doing that. UM,
and he he, I guess discovered linear perspective because I
think it's one of the things that was always there.
We just stumbled upon it through mirrors. That's how we
figured it out. Yeah, because if you look at a mirror,
all of a sudden, linear perspective really comes into focus, right,
(06:55):
you will. Well, And then scientists UM said, hey, we
could use these to make like reflecting telescopes, and that
was what year was at That was a long time ago.
The first reflecting telescope was invented by a guy named
James Bradley just off the top of my head. Very
well then, uh, And the mirrors were also used by
(07:15):
a very very famous scientist early scientists named Archimedes. Supposedly
I wrote an article on archimedes death. Ray, Oh did
you write that? Yeah? Did you ever read it? I
did back in a while ago, just out of interest?
How about that? Thanks a lot man? Sure did you
see in it? Um? Some I can't remember. It was
one of the Ivy League schools. They tried to set
(07:36):
things on fire with this system of mirrors, that arch
that's who it was, and they succeeded. Yes, And the
MythBusters claimed it was busted, like they set a small fire.
But I think they busted it because they said it
wasn't enough to like sink a ship. But m I
T I mean, they caused quite a fire on that boat.
And of course they had. I mean I saw this
(07:57):
set up online today. It was pretty massive. Of Archimedes
had that kind of technology or at least that many
mirrors at its disposal, or maybe he did. And plus
they had I think they used pretty good mirrors too. Yeah,
well it was legend though. They don't know if the
Archimedes thing is true. Right, we know that he invented
the water screw and let's saved countless lives. What's that
It's a way to deliver water from the ground top side.
(08:21):
Oh really yeah? Cool? You have to check it out,
smart dude. Um, so, Chuck, we now know the comprehensive
broad strokes of the history of mirrors. Right, Yes, let's
talk about mirror physics. We work for how stuff works
dot com, which means we're pretty much obligated to discuss
the physics of whatever we're talking about any time it applies, right,
(08:42):
And that's true, and mirrors are definitely one of those times. Yes,
so Chuck take it away. Well, I can cover the
first part because it makes sense to me. The law
of reflection um Josh says that when you bounce a
ray of light off the surface, it bounces back off
in a certain way, and it is um the angle
of incidences is when it comes in the angle of reflection,
(09:03):
it when it bounces off, and it matches so that
the way they pointed out in the article, which makes
sense to me is like at sunset, the sun is
very low on the horizon, so it bounces off at
a low angle, or approaches the water at a low angle,
like at a lake, let's say, and then it bounces
off of that lake at the same low angle, like
right into your face. But if it seems brighter if
the sun's overhead though, yeah, the sunlight is coming down
(09:27):
under the lake and it's reflecting back up basically over
your head. Yeah, you're looking at a horizontal angle pretty much,
and this is happening on a vertical angle. Yeah, that's
why you'll get like more glare at a sunrise or
a sunset scenario. Um. And what you're saying, the angle
of incidence equals the angle of reflection, right. Indeed, if
(09:49):
you take if if a if a beam of light
is shot at a ninety degree angle or no, let's
say eighty degree angle, it's gonna bounce off at an
opposite eighty degree angle. So both are at eighty degrees.
But if you look at the whole thing, the incidents
and the reflection, it's going to cover a hundred and
sixty degrees right, all right. So that's the first part.
(10:11):
That's that's how That explains how light reacts with the reflection,
and that's where the smooth surface with with most things
like say, look at my hand man, take a look
at these hands. Um, the the the light that's bouncing
off of them. What's giving us the ability to see
these huge, awesome hands, Um, is that they're not huge?
(10:33):
Are they are the smaller than average size? No, they're
they're bigger than mine. I got small hands. I wouldn't
see you have small hands. Let's see now those are like,
those are totally normal. I don't have hair in the
back of my hands either. I've got hair on my
first knuckles. Yeah, Robin Williams. Um, what's allowing us to
see our hands right now and judge their size and
(10:55):
scale is, um, what's called diffuse reflection, which the light
that's coming off of all of these light bulbs right
now are hitting all these different areas, these different services
on my hands, and it's bouncing off, it's being scattered
right the mirror the highly reflective surface. Um, what we
have is called specular reflection, and that is where it's
(11:18):
pretty close to the law of reflection, where the angles
coming in at one or the lights coming in at
one angle, and coming off at the same degree in
the opposite direction, right, Um, which is why we're allowed
to see ourselves in a piece of glass with metal
on the back. And what this creates when you're looking
(11:39):
at yourself is called the virtual image. Right. I find
it fascinating. Yeah, me too, and it's a little brain
melty for me, of course. But at the same time
you realize, like, well, you've grown up around mirrors the
whole time, and no one has any real concept of
of how they work. Right. We just take for granted
that they do work, but you don't really give much
(12:01):
thought to how they're working, right, Like the Venus effect.
Did you read about that? Yeah? That that's explained that
because this is where when we talk about or actually
the Venus effect is two different things, and both of
them kind of melt my brain that the left and
right being reversed, which is not actually true, and then
the venus effects. So let's talk about both of those. Okay, Well,
the Venus effect is basically just shows how little we
(12:24):
can grasp or how little we grasp mirrors and how
they work. If you look at um, paintings of the
Venus de Milo or Venus the goddess um Almost always
she's holding a hand mirror, and in the painting you
can see her face in the mirror, but she's looking
at herself in the mirror, and her face is painted
in the mirror for the benefit of the viewer. But
(12:46):
you take for granted that she's viewing herself, when in actuality,
if you could see Venus's face in the mirror, she
wouldn't be able to see herself. She'd see you in
the mirror because of that angle or the law of reflection. Yeah,
and that's the only way I only understood that was
when I remembered, like in my film set days, when
you shoot a person looking in a mirror, they aren't.
(13:07):
They don't see themselves in the mirror clearly, because he
would see the camera behind them, so that the mirror
is angled and it looks like they're looking at themselves
and primping, but they're not seeing themselves. Pretty cool, right,
So that makes sense to me now, it does, doesn't it. Okay,
the other thing you were saying is left and right, Yeah,
it's not actually left and right. Yeah, this one was
a little brain melty, but I think I finally got
(13:28):
it too. Okay, So consider that what you're not what
you're seeing isn't actually your reflection, but another version of
yourself in the mirror world. Right. If you look at
it that way, then the mirror represents the halfway point.
It's always halfway between you and your virtual self, right, right,
because your virtual self, that image of yourself in the
(13:48):
mirror is always twice as it's always two times away
from you, with the mirror representing the halfway point. Right,
So your two feet from the mirror and your virtual
self is another two feet away from you. Right, You
see what I'm saying. Yeah, And the left and right
thing isn't really left and right, it's really front and
back that are reversed. You again, think of yourself as
(14:08):
the virtual image. Yes, you walk into the mirror world,
you take you go another two feet away from where
you were just standing, So you're now your four feet
away from where you're just standing and turn around, right,
Which is weird because it actually gives the virtual image
something of its own identity, doesn't it does. It's a
little creepy. Yeah, So when you're looking at a mirror,
you're it's not a reflection of you from the mirrors perspective.
(14:31):
It's like that. The one example they gave was if
you wrote something on a piece of paper and then
held that paper up to the light and looked at
it from the back, it would appear backwards. But it's
not right. You're just behind it, yes, isn't it. Yeah,
it's pretty interesting stuff. And I gotta say when you
two things, when you mentioned doing mirrors, I said to myself, really,
(14:52):
And then when we told Jerry what we were doing
this on, she was like really, yeah, but it's I
think it's much more interesting than I originally thought. Well again,
it's like the butterfly swings, you know, like we just
have to know that if we're gonna understand absolutely everything
that's going on in the world, which is our mission. Yes. Uh,
should we talk about curved mirrors now? Yeah, because we
were talking about virtual images. There's actually a way to
(15:14):
project a real image where this thing isn't in the mirror.
It's outside of the mirror, but it's not really there.
It's a projected image, and that uses um concave mirrors.
You might be familiar with holograms, right, is that the
same concept the concave mirrors? And actually, if you want
to see a really cool example of UM a hologram
(15:36):
produced by a set of concave and flat mirrors. Um.
You should type in mirrage in YouTube and look for
the one that's a lowercase just mirrage and it's a
little piggy um, and it's pretty cool the demonstration that
this guy does. Yeah, check that out. But chuck, there's
concave and convex, right, Yeah. Convex is the one that
(15:56):
curves outward and uh, it reflects at a wider angle
near the edges in the center, so things are actually
smaller and you can cover more areas. So that's why
they'll use those. Uh, they'll stick them on like your
passenger mirrors, so you can see more area around your car.
And it also notes, you know, objects or smaller than
they appear or closer than they appear. Objects are smaller
(16:17):
than the appear, but they are smaller than they than
they appear. But that's not really that doesn't matter. It's
whether they're like in your back seat or not. Yeah,
and they actually Um. There are have been rumors over
the years that department stores put convex mirrors slightly convex
mirrors in their changing rooms to make you like a pear, tallerant,
thinner in the clothing that you try on. Remember that
Seinfeld where Eline like buys that dress, They had a
(16:40):
skinny mirror, And I think Barneys are blooming deals. Yeah,
forget about that. Yeah, I don't know. I think that's
probably urban legend, but who knows, um chuck. The other one,
like we said, was concave converging. We use this for holograms.
They also use that to light the Olympic torch. Yeah.
I didn't realize that either. I think that's a nod
to Archimedes too, probably, so you're probably a little more
(17:02):
um acquainted with convex mirrors. No concave mirrors for like
shaving or No, those horrible mirrors that show your like
hair into jail. Those are awful, they really are. Don't
ever look in those nonreversing mirror, which really is pretty simple.
It's just two mirrors perpendicular to each other, right, Yeah,
(17:23):
And the deal is with that they meet at the angle,
and so you technically can see a non reverse image,
but you've got that line running down the center of you.
They don't make like a flat, single nonreversing mirror, No,
they don't. I think it's physically impossible. It's not like
they don't make it like they're not interested. It's just
can't be done. But what's funny is there's a guy
named Um John Derby who has a patent. In seven
(17:49):
when he was alive, he had a patent for a
nonreversing mirror. By sticking two mirrors together, I could get
a patent for that. I could fill out the patent
application for that. Could Yeah, it's like take mirror A
and you stick it perpendicular to mirr B right there,
give me my patent. Well, but then John Derby's family
would come after you. Hopefully it ran out by now,
(18:09):
and just for simpleness, Josh, two way mirrors as seen
in every cop shakedown movie ever made. Yes, now, this
is fascinating, Chuck. How does the two way mirror work? Well,
it's really pretty easy. It's just it's the same concept
of the mirror, but it's a very thin. It's very
much a lighter reflection the material they use and the
(18:29):
coated side. When it faces the lit room, some of
the light reflects and some goes into the dark room
behind it. So basically, like you know, you can't you
can see only see one way right because of the
light mainly, so it's just like very thin reflective surface
where if you're not if you turn in, if you
turn on lights in both rooms, you'd be able to
(18:51):
see through that reflective surface. Right. Yeah, it's all about
the lighting. And that's a movie there. There's several movie
mirror things that are done in like every movie, and
that's one of them with the Coton movie. And inevitably
the person getting questioned will always walk right up and
like be staring into the face of the person on
the other side that they can't see. And then the
other favorite of mine, which one of the SNL shorts aped,
(19:13):
was um the classic horror movie scene where you where
you look in the medicine cabinet in the mirror and
then you open the medicine cabinet and then you close
it and the dude is right behind you. That's a classic.
It is there's UM again on YouTube. I think there's
a a montage, like a four minute montage of that
being used over and times. Dude and it still gets people. Yeah,
(19:34):
but now that the whole spin is to do that
and then there's not someone there, and then they'll turn
around and that's where they are something just jerking the
audience around. That's in there too. Oh it is, huh yeah, yeah,
it's not just people closing there, someone saying there's ones
where they're not standing there. Yeah. I love those movie
conventions that are The other one too, is it doesn't
even do with mirrors, but the scene where you're where
(19:57):
someone is searching for the files and then the person
office after dark and you know they're coming up the
steps and they opened the door and you're like they're pinched,
and then they open the door and the person's gone
and there's like a window open, right, and it's just
like the curtains. Hundreds and hundreds of time is still
done yet I'm still like, oh my gosh, here they come.
What about Poultergeist, the great classic mirror scene of the
(20:20):
guys like picking at that little clister and ends up
pulling his whole face off. Yeah that's pretty creepy. Yeah, classic.
Thank you Toby Hooper. Did he make that? Yeah? I like, oh,
that's right, he reproduced it, right, that's right. I always
think he directed that. What else, Chuck, Well, there's some
superstitions around mirrors in folklore, um summoning bloody Mary by
(20:42):
saying her names three times in a mirror, or candy
Man if you're a little more recent, breaking a mirror
supposedly bad luck because um for seven years, because they
believe that the soul regenerates every seven years. Yeah, that
explains it, doesn't it. Yeah, And that's why vampires have
no soul. That's why they can't see themselves in mirrors.
(21:02):
And a couple of them I haven't heard of are
if you give birth and look in a mirror too
soon afterward, you will see ghostly faces peek out from
behind the reflection. I've never heard that one in you know,
I had heard of suiting Shiva though, Yeah, what's the
deal with that one? Well, if you're Jewish and somebody dies,
part of the morning process is to cover all the
mirrors in the house to say that in the talmud.
(21:26):
Shut up, Chuck. Also, we have gotten conflicting um information
about whether or not it is taboo among Judaism to
be cremated. Did you notice? Yeah? And what we and
I'll stand behind what we found, which was that reform
Jews will do it, but they it's still not like
(21:47):
encouraged and then but it is actually forbidden in the
actual Jewish text. So there, fine, is that it? I
think that's about it? Um? Oh New Year's Eve? Right, Yeah,
I hadn't heard this one in there. If you go
up to a mirror on New Year's even a candle
in your hand, and you say the name of a
dead person, probably a dead loved one, UM, in a
(22:09):
loud voice, their face should appear in the mirror. Never
heard that. And this is my favorite one, the ancient
Chinese mythology. Um. You know how you see weird movement
in like the corner of a mirror every once in
a while. Have you ever noticed that? Uh? Sure, I
just figured it was like your mind playing tricks on you.
I'm sure it is, unless you're Chinese pal then what
(22:31):
it is are the um, the mirror people, the mere Kingdom.
There's a group of opposites who live in the Mirror Kingdom,
and they are sworn to do battle with us. Yeah,
and if this were North mythology, we'd lose, and we
may lose in this case too. But they are in
a I guess a magical slumber. Um. But when we
(22:51):
catch a little weird, unexplained movement in the corners of mirrors. Um,
this is these people stirring in their sleep, waiting to
wake up and kill us all in our sleep. I'll
remember that next time I see something in the corner
of my eye. Yeah. So that's it for mirrors. Um,
that's it. I mean, that is it? Nothing else? There
is literally nothing else to say about mirrors. Nope, and
(23:15):
uh if you think that there is, we defy you
to go to house stuff works dot com and type
mirrors into the search bar. Pal dare you listener mails?
Listener mail Josh, this is a little uh cool organization
that we want to support here And how long you've
(23:35):
been smoked free buddy? It's over four months now, crazy,
isn't so proud? Hi chucking Josh. I travel outside the
city every weekend, listen to your podcast, and I always
share my new knowledge with friends. Needless to say, I'm
the Friday Night smarty pants and I'd rather like it.
Why I'm writing I want to promote the New York
City Walk to Beat Lung Cancer. I'm one of the
(23:56):
head chair persons. At years old, I never thought I
would share anything, but I love my new responsibility as
I am making a huge difference to an underdog cause,
how could cancer be an underdog? Josh is the question.
I don't know. I think it's pretty bad. When you
hear someone has lung cancer, the first thing that comes
to your mind is probably did he or she smoked?
It never fails, it is a valid question. Uh. Funding
(24:18):
for lung cancers, completely dwarfed by other cancers that are
nearly as fatal and is completely due to the stigma
of a smoker's disease get turned away by sponsors and
media all the time because no one wants to support
a disease that is so preventable. But the thing is,
it isn't people who get LC second hand? UH, for
no reason at all, happens all the time. Why don't
(24:41):
people ask those with skin cancer if they wore sunscreen
or people who have heart attacks if they ate. Well,
it's just silly, But looking at the numbers, it just
doesn't add up. Um. So here's what we're gonna do, Jess,
since you were the chair, there's an event in New
York City, New York City. It's called the Walk to
Prevent I'm sorry, the Walk to Beat Lung Cancer Lung Cancer,
(25:01):
and it is October two thousand ten in Battery Park
and if you would like to take part in this
walk to beat Lung cancer, Jess would really appreciate it.
You can go to a website www dot longevity see
what they did there, dot org slash NYC walk, so
that is l U n G E v I T
(25:23):
Y dot org slash NYC walk. Or Twitter you can
follow this and get information at Walk number four Lung
Cancer All one word or Facebook at Walk to Beat
Lung Cancer and Jess would appreciate your participations. Are New
York City buddies that we met while we were there,
Spread the word and get out and walk. Yeah, that's awesome.
(25:45):
And if you're one of those people who poo poo's
lung cancer or helping battle lung cancer, yeah, maybe it's
time you took a long look in the mirror because
you could be a jerk. If you have any kind
of organization like chucking out and give a shout out
to we consider those in a case by case basis.
Don't we chuck We sure you, Um, it definitely doesn't
(26:07):
help or it definitely doesn't hurt to uh grease the
wheels if you know what I mean. And we're not
talking about cash prizes now, We can't legally do that,
can't we know? You can tell us about your organization
in an email to send it to stuff podcast at
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
(26:32):
thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
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are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
(00:20):
We're about to talk about mirrors. I set up it's
a SINCU. How are you Were you in the mirrors
growing up? Now that we said, you know, I did
it sccinctly, We're gonna just blow like three minutes, right, No,
I was asking you if you were in the mirrors
in the mirrors growing up? Yeah, I mean that didn't
every kid go through a phase where they're like very
(00:41):
obsessed with their looks and mirrors and things. Oh yeah,
I was into myself. I wasn't in the mirrors. They
were just means to end, you know. Yeah, But I
like I was reading this and I kind of was
just thinking myself and remembering laughing about I remember being
like fifteen and like stopping to look at mirrors anytime
there was one to see what looks like. Yeah, and
now I just break them. I'd forgotten all about that
(01:02):
phase of my life though, until you just brought it up,
remember that. Yeah, it's nice to be able to not
look at a mirror. Like some days. I'll go out,
you know, after getting ready in the morning, and I
have no idea what I actually look like. But I'm
so and this is um this cross pollination with an
earlier podcast. I suffered from body dysmorphic disorder so badly
(01:24):
that I don't really know what I look like anyway.
I think I look a bit like theme from taxidermia.
What's that? It's not plusant? Okay, well you don't my friend.
I don't even know what he looks like, but I
can tell you don't look like him. I appreciate that, Chuck, Chuck,
do you want to hear what I had in store? Like?
(01:45):
I could not come up with an intro for this.
Let's Websters defines mirror. I'm kidding. I always going to
say something equally bad, though it was going to be
something along the lines with mirrors are ubiquitous. I've seen
at least six of them today. They weren't always that way, though, Chuck. Well,
(02:06):
it says in the article here the full length mirrors
have only been around four hundred years. That didn't seem right.
That's not right, No, um full length mirrors. There is
a type of full length mirror UM that has been
around for about four hundred years. Full length mirrors, as
far as I know, are mirrors capable of reflecting a
full image of a person, have been around since about
(02:27):
the first century a D. Actually, UM and mirrors us
using surfaces, polished surfaces to see our own reflection. UM
has been around since about six thousand BC. Yeah. The
earliest ones were found in Anatolia, Turkey, and they're polished obsidian. Yeah,
(02:48):
it's a volcanic glass. Yeah, so it's it's dark. That's interesting,
but it's still produced the best reflection, I guess at
the time. At the time, I mean, you gotta you
gotta go with what you what we have to work with, right, Well, yeah,
but then after that they led them to um like
silver and bronze and copper, polished polished reflection spasics and chuck.
I don't know if you've ever held a hunk of
(03:10):
of copper or bronze I haven't, or silver I have. Okay,
it's heavy, Yeah, it's real heavy. Right. So this actually
limited the size of mirrors for centuries, right, Yeah, And
they were just kind of decorative at first two right,
I think so. And you also had to be extremely
rich um to own one of these, right um. And
(03:32):
then around I think the Middle Ages, we became capable
of making glass, and all of a sudden it was
like mirror technology just takes a huge leap forward. Well true,
but not not super uh forward, because the sand was
pretty impure back then they used to make the glass.
So I think they, um they said in the article,
(03:53):
was until like the Renaissance that it kind of really
started becoming a little more polished, if you will, terrible.
And then the Venetians are who really you know with
a glass and everything. They just they just took in
ran with it. Well. Even still, if you successfully made
a mirror, um, it was probably extremely expensive as well
because they were so rare. The process of manufacturing a
(04:16):
mirror um very infrequently produced a usable mirror. That's what
you're doing was adhering um melted molten metal onto glass,
which almost always broke the glass. So when it didn't,
I'm sure you're just like, oh my god's the first
one in seven years? Right um? But that when I
(04:39):
was reading this article, I didn't really think about it.
That's what a mirror is, isn't it. I've even seen
the back of mirrors and been like others like metal
looks like spray painted on the back. That's exactly right.
And that was the process, um what's it called silver
ring that was invented by a guy named Justice von
Liebig and in a team thirty five. If you figured
(05:01):
out how to spray very thin layer of silver um
or aluminum on the back or on one side of
a glass, and they're, my friend, you have the modern mirror. Yeah,
and now they I think they make it now by
heating aluminum in a vacuum and kind of much the
same way or different methods, but the same same concept.
(05:22):
Go ahead, Well, I wanted to say when when you
were talking about the Renaissance, the Venetians were they? I
guess they had the secret of mirrors under wraps like
the Mason's very much so. Um. And if you were
a mirror maker and it got out that you had
told someone how to make mirrors, you were frequently killed. Right, Yeah,
(05:46):
trade secret. But when mirrors were introduced, um, when good
mirrors were introduced, not polished obsidian, things changed a little bit,
especially with art. Right. Yeah, I never really considered that,
but that it spawned something that would become a mark
of the art world, which is the self portrait. Right
before that, you couldn't draw yourself because you could not
see yourself. That's exactly right, And you could, but I
(06:09):
mean you're gonna use like maybe a pond or a
piece of polished medal or something like that. Imagine like
going out and looking at a pond and going back
and sitting down now as opposed to having a mirror there. Yes,
really simplified it. It's also not coincidental that UM good
mirrors came about at the same time that UM linear
perspective was introduced into art. Yeah, there's a guy named
(06:32):
UM Filippo Brunus Brunelleschi. Nice Chuck, thank you for doing that. UM,
and he he, I guess discovered linear perspective because I
think it's one of the things that was always there.
We just stumbled upon it through mirrors. That's how we
figured it out. Yeah, because if you look at a mirror,
all of a sudden, linear perspective really comes into focus, right,
(06:55):
you will. Well, And then scientists UM said, hey, we
could use these to make like reflecting telescopes, and that
was what year was at That was a long time ago.
The first reflecting telescope was invented by a guy named
James Bradley just off the top of my head. Very
well then, uh, And the mirrors were also used by
(07:15):
a very very famous scientist early scientists named Archimedes. Supposedly
I wrote an article on archimedes death. Ray, Oh did
you write that? Yeah? Did you ever read it? I
did back in a while ago, just out of interest?
How about that? Thanks a lot man? Sure did you
see in it? Um? Some I can't remember. It was
one of the Ivy League schools. They tried to set
(07:36):
things on fire with this system of mirrors, that arch
that's who it was, and they succeeded. Yes, And the
MythBusters claimed it was busted, like they set a small fire.
But I think they busted it because they said it
wasn't enough to like sink a ship. But m I
T I mean, they caused quite a fire on that boat.
And of course they had. I mean I saw this
(07:57):
set up online today. It was pretty massive. Of Archimedes
had that kind of technology or at least that many
mirrors at its disposal, or maybe he did. And plus
they had I think they used pretty good mirrors too. Yeah,
well it was legend though. They don't know if the
Archimedes thing is true. Right, we know that he invented
the water screw and let's saved countless lives. What's that
It's a way to deliver water from the ground top side.
(08:21):
Oh really yeah? Cool? You have to check it out,
smart dude. Um, so, Chuck, we now know the comprehensive
broad strokes of the history of mirrors. Right, Yes, let's
talk about mirror physics. We work for how stuff works
dot com, which means we're pretty much obligated to discuss
the physics of whatever we're talking about any time it applies, right,
(08:42):
And that's true, and mirrors are definitely one of those times. Yes,
so Chuck take it away. Well, I can cover the
first part because it makes sense to me. The law
of reflection um Josh says that when you bounce a
ray of light off the surface, it bounces back off
in a certain way, and it is um the angle
of incidences is when it comes in the angle of reflection,
(09:03):
it when it bounces off, and it matches so that
the way they pointed out in the article, which makes
sense to me is like at sunset, the sun is
very low on the horizon, so it bounces off at
a low angle, or approaches the water at a low angle,
like at a lake, let's say, and then it bounces
off of that lake at the same low angle, like
right into your face. But if it seems brighter if
the sun's overhead though, yeah, the sunlight is coming down
(09:27):
under the lake and it's reflecting back up basically over
your head. Yeah, you're looking at a horizontal angle pretty much,
and this is happening on a vertical angle. Yeah, that's
why you'll get like more glare at a sunrise or
a sunset scenario. Um. And what you're saying, the angle
of incidence equals the angle of reflection, right. Indeed, if
(09:49):
you take if if a if a beam of light
is shot at a ninety degree angle or no, let's
say eighty degree angle, it's gonna bounce off at an
opposite eighty degree angle. So both are at eighty degrees.
But if you look at the whole thing, the incidents
and the reflection, it's going to cover a hundred and
sixty degrees right, all right. So that's the first part.
(10:11):
That's that's how That explains how light reacts with the reflection,
and that's where the smooth surface with with most things
like say, look at my hand man, take a look
at these hands. Um, the the the light that's bouncing
off of them. What's giving us the ability to see
these huge, awesome hands, Um, is that they're not huge?
(10:33):
Are they are the smaller than average size? No, they're
they're bigger than mine. I got small hands. I wouldn't
see you have small hands. Let's see now those are like,
those are totally normal. I don't have hair in the
back of my hands either. I've got hair on my
first knuckles. Yeah, Robin Williams. Um, what's allowing us to
see our hands right now and judge their size and
(10:55):
scale is, um, what's called diffuse reflection, which the light
that's coming off of all of these light bulbs right
now are hitting all these different areas, these different services
on my hands, and it's bouncing off, it's being scattered
right the mirror the highly reflective surface. Um, what we
have is called specular reflection, and that is where it's
(11:18):
pretty close to the law of reflection, where the angles
coming in at one or the lights coming in at
one angle, and coming off at the same degree in
the opposite direction, right, Um, which is why we're allowed
to see ourselves in a piece of glass with metal
on the back. And what this creates when you're looking
(11:39):
at yourself is called the virtual image. Right. I find
it fascinating. Yeah, me too, and it's a little brain
melty for me, of course. But at the same time
you realize, like, well, you've grown up around mirrors the
whole time, and no one has any real concept of
of how they work. Right. We just take for granted
that they do work, but you don't really give much
(12:01):
thought to how they're working, right, Like the Venus effect.
Did you read about that? Yeah? That that's explained that
because this is where when we talk about or actually
the Venus effect is two different things, and both of
them kind of melt my brain that the left and
right being reversed, which is not actually true, and then
the venus effects. So let's talk about both of those. Okay, Well,
the Venus effect is basically just shows how little we
(12:24):
can grasp or how little we grasp mirrors and how
they work. If you look at um, paintings of the
Venus de Milo or Venus the goddess um Almost always
she's holding a hand mirror, and in the painting you
can see her face in the mirror, but she's looking
at herself in the mirror, and her face is painted
in the mirror for the benefit of the viewer. But
(12:46):
you take for granted that she's viewing herself, when in actuality,
if you could see Venus's face in the mirror, she
wouldn't be able to see herself. She'd see you in
the mirror because of that angle or the law of reflection. Yeah,
and that's the only way I only understood that was
when I remembered, like in my film set days, when
you shoot a person looking in a mirror, they aren't.
(13:07):
They don't see themselves in the mirror clearly, because he
would see the camera behind them, so that the mirror
is angled and it looks like they're looking at themselves
and primping, but they're not seeing themselves. Pretty cool, right,
So that makes sense to me now, it does, doesn't it. Okay,
the other thing you were saying is left and right, Yeah,
it's not actually left and right. Yeah, this one was
a little brain melty, but I think I finally got
(13:28):
it too. Okay, So consider that what you're not what
you're seeing isn't actually your reflection, but another version of
yourself in the mirror world. Right. If you look at
it that way, then the mirror represents the halfway point.
It's always halfway between you and your virtual self, right, right,
because your virtual self, that image of yourself in the
(13:48):
mirror is always twice as it's always two times away
from you, with the mirror representing the halfway point. Right,
So your two feet from the mirror and your virtual
self is another two feet away from you. Right, You
see what I'm saying. Yeah, And the left and right
thing isn't really left and right, it's really front and
back that are reversed. You again, think of yourself as
(14:08):
the virtual image. Yes, you walk into the mirror world,
you take you go another two feet away from where
you were just standing, So you're now your four feet
away from where you're just standing and turn around, right,
Which is weird because it actually gives the virtual image
something of its own identity, doesn't it does. It's a
little creepy. Yeah, So when you're looking at a mirror,
you're it's not a reflection of you from the mirrors perspective.
(14:31):
It's like that. The one example they gave was if
you wrote something on a piece of paper and then
held that paper up to the light and looked at
it from the back, it would appear backwards. But it's
not right. You're just behind it, yes, isn't it. Yeah,
it's pretty interesting stuff. And I gotta say when you
two things, when you mentioned doing mirrors, I said to myself, really,
(14:52):
And then when we told Jerry what we were doing
this on, she was like really, yeah, but it's I
think it's much more interesting than I originally thought. Well again,
it's like the butterfly swings, you know, like we just
have to know that if we're gonna understand absolutely everything
that's going on in the world, which is our mission. Yes. Uh,
should we talk about curved mirrors now? Yeah, because we
were talking about virtual images. There's actually a way to
(15:14):
project a real image where this thing isn't in the mirror.
It's outside of the mirror, but it's not really there.
It's a projected image, and that uses um concave mirrors.
You might be familiar with holograms, right, is that the
same concept the concave mirrors? And actually, if you want
to see a really cool example of UM a hologram
(15:36):
produced by a set of concave and flat mirrors. Um.
You should type in mirrage in YouTube and look for
the one that's a lowercase just mirrage and it's a
little piggy um, and it's pretty cool the demonstration that
this guy does. Yeah, check that out. But chuck, there's
concave and convex, right, Yeah. Convex is the one that
(15:56):
curves outward and uh, it reflects at a wider angle
near the edges in the center, so things are actually
smaller and you can cover more areas. So that's why
they'll use those. Uh, they'll stick them on like your
passenger mirrors, so you can see more area around your car.
And it also notes, you know, objects or smaller than
they appear or closer than they appear. Objects are smaller
(16:17):
than the appear, but they are smaller than they than
they appear. But that's not really that doesn't matter. It's
whether they're like in your back seat or not. Yeah,
and they actually Um. There are have been rumors over
the years that department stores put convex mirrors slightly convex
mirrors in their changing rooms to make you like a pear, tallerant,
thinner in the clothing that you try on. Remember that
Seinfeld where Eline like buys that dress, They had a
(16:40):
skinny mirror, And I think Barneys are blooming deals. Yeah,
forget about that. Yeah, I don't know. I think that's
probably urban legend, but who knows, um chuck. The other one,
like we said, was concave converging. We use this for holograms.
They also use that to light the Olympic torch. Yeah.
I didn't realize that either. I think that's a nod
to Archimedes too, probably, so you're probably a little more
(17:02):
um acquainted with convex mirrors. No concave mirrors for like
shaving or No, those horrible mirrors that show your like
hair into jail. Those are awful, they really are. Don't
ever look in those nonreversing mirror, which really is pretty simple.
It's just two mirrors perpendicular to each other, right, Yeah,
(17:23):
And the deal is with that they meet at the angle,
and so you technically can see a non reverse image,
but you've got that line running down the center of you.
They don't make like a flat, single nonreversing mirror, No,
they don't. I think it's physically impossible. It's not like
they don't make it like they're not interested. It's just
can't be done. But what's funny is there's a guy
named Um John Derby who has a patent. In seven
(17:49):
when he was alive, he had a patent for a
nonreversing mirror. By sticking two mirrors together, I could get
a patent for that. I could fill out the patent
application for that. Could Yeah, it's like take mirror A
and you stick it perpendicular to mirr B right there,
give me my patent. Well, but then John Derby's family
would come after you. Hopefully it ran out by now,
(18:09):
and just for simpleness, Josh, two way mirrors as seen
in every cop shakedown movie ever made. Yes, now, this
is fascinating, Chuck. How does the two way mirror work? Well,
it's really pretty easy. It's just it's the same concept
of the mirror, but it's a very thin. It's very
much a lighter reflection the material they use and the
(18:29):
coated side. When it faces the lit room, some of
the light reflects and some goes into the dark room
behind it. So basically, like you know, you can't you
can see only see one way right because of the
light mainly, so it's just like very thin reflective surface
where if you're not if you turn in, if you
turn on lights in both rooms, you'd be able to
(18:51):
see through that reflective surface. Right. Yeah, it's all about
the lighting. And that's a movie there. There's several movie
mirror things that are done in like every movie, and
that's one of them with the Coton movie. And inevitably
the person getting questioned will always walk right up and
like be staring into the face of the person on
the other side that they can't see. And then the
other favorite of mine, which one of the SNL shorts aped,
(19:13):
was um the classic horror movie scene where you where
you look in the medicine cabinet in the mirror and
then you open the medicine cabinet and then you close
it and the dude is right behind you. That's a classic.
It is there's UM again on YouTube. I think there's
a a montage, like a four minute montage of that
being used over and times. Dude and it still gets people. Yeah,
(19:34):
but now that the whole spin is to do that
and then there's not someone there, and then they'll turn
around and that's where they are something just jerking the
audience around. That's in there too. Oh it is, huh yeah, yeah,
it's not just people closing there, someone saying there's ones
where they're not standing there. Yeah. I love those movie
conventions that are The other one too, is it doesn't
even do with mirrors, but the scene where you're where
(19:57):
someone is searching for the files and then the person
office after dark and you know they're coming up the
steps and they opened the door and you're like they're pinched,
and then they open the door and the person's gone
and there's like a window open, right, and it's just
like the curtains. Hundreds and hundreds of time is still
done yet I'm still like, oh my gosh, here they come.
What about Poultergeist, the great classic mirror scene of the
(20:20):
guys like picking at that little clister and ends up
pulling his whole face off. Yeah that's pretty creepy. Yeah, classic.
Thank you Toby Hooper. Did he make that? Yeah? I like, oh,
that's right, he reproduced it, right, that's right. I always
think he directed that. What else, Chuck, Well, there's some
superstitions around mirrors in folklore, um summoning bloody Mary by
(20:42):
saying her names three times in a mirror, or candy
Man if you're a little more recent, breaking a mirror
supposedly bad luck because um for seven years, because they
believe that the soul regenerates every seven years. Yeah, that
explains it, doesn't it. Yeah, And that's why vampires have
no soul. That's why they can't see themselves in mirrors.
(21:02):
And a couple of them I haven't heard of are
if you give birth and look in a mirror too
soon afterward, you will see ghostly faces peek out from
behind the reflection. I've never heard that one in you know,
I had heard of suiting Shiva though, Yeah, what's the
deal with that one? Well, if you're Jewish and somebody dies,
part of the morning process is to cover all the
mirrors in the house to say that in the talmud.
(21:26):
Shut up, Chuck. Also, we have gotten conflicting um information
about whether or not it is taboo among Judaism to
be cremated. Did you notice? Yeah? And what we and
I'll stand behind what we found, which was that reform
Jews will do it, but they it's still not like
(21:47):
encouraged and then but it is actually forbidden in the
actual Jewish text. So there, fine, is that it? I
think that's about it? Um? Oh New Year's Eve? Right, Yeah,
I hadn't heard this one in there. If you go
up to a mirror on New Year's even a candle
in your hand, and you say the name of a
dead person, probably a dead loved one, UM, in a
(22:09):
loud voice, their face should appear in the mirror. Never
heard that. And this is my favorite one, the ancient
Chinese mythology. Um. You know how you see weird movement
in like the corner of a mirror every once in
a while. Have you ever noticed that? Uh? Sure, I
just figured it was like your mind playing tricks on you.
I'm sure it is, unless you're Chinese pal then what
(22:31):
it is are the um, the mirror people, the mere Kingdom.
There's a group of opposites who live in the Mirror Kingdom,
and they are sworn to do battle with us. Yeah,
and if this were North mythology, we'd lose, and we
may lose in this case too. But they are in
a I guess a magical slumber. Um. But when we
(22:51):
catch a little weird, unexplained movement in the corners of mirrors. Um,
this is these people stirring in their sleep, waiting to
wake up and kill us all in our sleep. I'll
remember that next time I see something in the corner
of my eye. Yeah. So that's it for mirrors. Um,
that's it. I mean, that is it? Nothing else? There
is literally nothing else to say about mirrors. Nope, and
(23:15):
uh if you think that there is, we defy you
to go to house stuff works dot com and type
mirrors into the search bar. Pal dare you listener mails?
Listener mail Josh, this is a little uh cool organization
that we want to support here And how long you've
(23:35):
been smoked free buddy? It's over four months now, crazy,
isn't so proud? Hi chucking Josh. I travel outside the
city every weekend, listen to your podcast, and I always
share my new knowledge with friends. Needless to say, I'm
the Friday Night smarty pants and I'd rather like it.
Why I'm writing I want to promote the New York
City Walk to Beat Lung Cancer. I'm one of the
(23:56):
head chair persons. At years old, I never thought I
would share anything, but I love my new responsibility as
I am making a huge difference to an underdog cause,
how could cancer be an underdog? Josh is the question.
I don't know. I think it's pretty bad. When you
hear someone has lung cancer, the first thing that comes
to your mind is probably did he or she smoked?
It never fails, it is a valid question. Uh. Funding
(24:18):
for lung cancers, completely dwarfed by other cancers that are
nearly as fatal and is completely due to the stigma
of a smoker's disease get turned away by sponsors and
media all the time because no one wants to support
a disease that is so preventable. But the thing is,
it isn't people who get LC second hand? UH, for
no reason at all, happens all the time. Why don't
(24:41):
people ask those with skin cancer if they wore sunscreen
or people who have heart attacks if they ate. Well,
it's just silly, But looking at the numbers, it just
doesn't add up. Um. So here's what we're gonna do, Jess,
since you were the chair, there's an event in New
York City, New York City. It's called the Walk to
Prevent I'm sorry, the Walk to Beat Lung Cancer Lung Cancer,
(25:01):
and it is October two thousand ten in Battery Park
and if you would like to take part in this
walk to beat Lung cancer, Jess would really appreciate it.
You can go to a website www dot longevity see
what they did there, dot org slash NYC walk, so
that is l U n G E v I T
(25:23):
Y dot org slash NYC walk. Or Twitter you can
follow this and get information at Walk number four Lung
Cancer All one word or Facebook at Walk to Beat
Lung Cancer and Jess would appreciate your participations. Are New
York City buddies that we met while we were there,
Spread the word and get out and walk. Yeah, that's awesome.
(25:45):
And if you're one of those people who poo poo's
lung cancer or helping battle lung cancer, yeah, maybe it's
time you took a long look in the mirror because
you could be a jerk. If you have any kind
of organization like chucking out and give a shout out
to we consider those in a case by case basis.
Don't we chuck We sure you, Um, it definitely doesn't
(26:07):
help or it definitely doesn't hurt to uh grease the
wheels if you know what I mean. And we're not
talking about cash prizes now, We can't legally do that,
can't we know? You can tell us about your organization
in an email to send it to stuff podcast at
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
(26:32):
thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
the house. Stuff works dot com home page. Brought to
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
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