You are on page 1of 13

Reflection of Light

Ray-tracing with plane, convex, and concave mirrors


Goals:
To investigate the image-forming ability of various mirror systems
To use the method of ray-tracing to locate images

Equipment:
Cork board
Plane mirror
Convex mirror
Concave mirror
Supply of pins
Metric ruler

Introduction:
When light is reflected off of any surface, the angle that the incoming (incident) light ray makes
with respect to the normal to the surface will be equal to the angle that the outgoing (reflected)
light ray makes with respect to the normal. We refer to this rule of nature as the law of
reflection, and write it in equation form as
i = r. (Eq. 1)
This is true of all reflections, but in most situations we encounter in our daily lives, we will only
see diffuse reflections, in which the surface in question is microscopically rough, so that the
normal to the surface varies randomly at each point along the surface. Because of this, the light
incident on the surface is bounced in many directions at once, effectively scattering (diffusing) it.
In this lab, we will be interested in specular reflections, in which the surface in question is
smooth, and as a result, the normal to the surface points essentially in one direction over a given
area, thus providing us with a very clear reflection of the incident light, what in everyday
language we could call a mirror-like reflection.

A mirror, then, is simply a material that has been polished so much that its surface is smooth
enough to allow for specular reflection to occur. We will look at three particular types of mirrors:
a plane (flat) mirror, a convex mirror, and a concave mirror. In all of these experiments, we will
place an object in front of the mirror, and explore the different ways in which an image of that
object appears in the mirror. In all situations, the location of the image is defined to be the place
from which it appears that light is coming (where the viewer perceives the reflection to be).

Plane Mirrors
Reflections off of plane mirrors are made simply in accordance with the law of reflection, Eq. 1
above. The image formed is always a virtual image, i.e., the image will appear be located at a
place from which the light rays could not have actually traveled to the observer. (In the case of
plane mirrors, the image always appears to be located behind the mirror, as if the mirror were a
window into another place. Obviously, no light is reaching our eye from behind the mirror, so
we see why the image is called virtual.) We will contrast this later with a real image, in which

Reflection of Light
the light rays emanating from the object do actually reach the location of the image and pass
through it. If we placed a piece of paper or a screen at the location where a real image is formed,
we would see that image clearly on the paper.

Plane mirrors are easier to understand than curved mirrors simply because they provide an un-
modified reflection of the object, whereas, as well see in this lab, curved mirrors distort their
images, making them smaller or larger, in some cases right-side-up and sometimes upside-down
(inverted). Well explore these different possibilities, and learn how to trace the light rays along
their paths to understand how these images are formed.

Concave Mirrors
Curved mirrors also obey the law of reflection, but the normal to the surface no longer points
uniformly in the same direction as it did with plane mirrors. For concave mirrors in particular,
incoming light rays from very distant objects will be directed, or focused, to a particular point,
which we call the focal point of the mirror.

As an example of how this happens, we draw diagrams such as Figure below, in which we see
an object placed in front of the mirror. We find the image formed by the mirror by following the
path of several light rays from a point on the source to the point where all those rays cross.

C h' f

s'

Figure 1 Ray-tracing for a concave mirror. Only three conveniently chosen rays are drawn from a point in the object
in order to keep the figure clear, but bear in mind that, in reality, there are an infinite number of light rays emanating
from every point on the object. For the situation shown here, the image is inverted, reduced, and real.
In the diagram shown, C is the center of curvature for the mirror, F is the focal point for the
mirror, s is the distance of the object from the mirror, s is the distance from the mirror of the
image, and h and h are the heights of the object and image, respectively. A line drawn from the
center of the mirror that passes through the focal point and the center of curvature defines the
principal axis.

An infinite number of rays can be drawn from a single point on the object to the corresponding
point on the image, but there are three rays that are especially easy to draw for curved mirrors:
A ray that comes in parallel to the principal axis of the mirror will be reflected such that it
passes through the focal point.

Reflection of Light
A ray that passes through the focal point of the mirror will be reflected such that it comes
out parallel to the principal axis.
A ray that strikes the mirror at the principal axis with a particular incident angle will
reflect making the same angle with the principal axis.

These three rays can be drawn for any curved mirror and are shown in Figure .

In Figure 2, we focus on two of these special rays, following one ray that reflects off of the
mirror at the principal axis (middle ray) and another ray travels parallel to the principal axis and
then is reflected through the focal point (parallel ray). Looking at ray 1 in particular, we see that
the triangle ABD is similar to triangle GED (both of which are shaded).

s
A I
H
h
E
B C h' f D

G
s'

Figure 2 Looking at two specific rays coming from the tip of the object in order to find geometric relationships
between the object and image distances, and the object and image heights.
The sides of similar triangles are all in proportion to each other, so we can say
AB GE
.
BD ED
Rewriting this result in terms of our measurements of distances and sizes of the object and
image, we find
h h
, (Eq. 2)
s s'
where the minus sign appears on the right to indicate that the image is inverted. Looking again at
Figure 2, we can see that triangle HIF must be similar to triangle FEG. This yields the relation
FI GE
.
IH EF
Again, rewriting this in terms of the distances and sizes in which we are interested, we find
h h
. (Eq. 3)
f s f

Reflection of Light
By solving both Eqs. 2 and 3 for the ratio s/s, we can set the two expressions equal to each
other and find
s f s
f s
s s
1 .
f s
By dividing both sides of this equation by s, and re-arranging terms, we come to the mirror
equation:
1 1 1
. (Eq. 4)
f s s
We can also define the lateral magnification, M, to be the ratio of the image height to the object
height. Based on Equation 2, we then also have:
h s
M , (Eq. 5)
h s
where a negative magnification implies an inverted image.

Convex Mirrors
The same mirror equation (Eq. 4), and the same equations relating object height, image height,
object distance, and image distance (Eq. 5) apply to convex mirrors as well. Figure 3
demonstrates how to ray-trace an image created by a convex mirror. A few things need to kept in
mind:
For convex mirrors, the focal length is negative.
Convex mirrors can only form virtual, upright, reduced images.

h
h'
f C
s'

Figure 3 Ray-tracing for a convex mirror. The image will always appear upright, reduced, and virtual.

Reflection of Light
Name: ____________________________ Sect.: _______
Name: ____________________________ Name: ____________________________

Directions:
In all of the steps to follow, try to place your pins in the corkboard as vertically as you can, and
attempt to align your pins with the images in the mirrors by aligning the bottoms of the pins (i.e.,
where they enter the corkboard).

Activity 1: Plane Mirrors


1. Pin the Plane Mirror Template onto the cork board, and set the plane mirror on top of the
boxed-in area on the template, with the mirrored (shiny) side facing the arrow on the
template. The arrow will represent our object.
Q1. Describe, in your own words, the image of the object arrow you see in the mirror.

2. Place a pin at the tip of the arrow. This will be our object pin and will show the location of
the tip of the arrow. Look in the mirror and verify that you can see an image of the pin
reflected in the mirror. Move your head from side to side to see if the image changes or
appears to come from a different location.

Figure 4 Determining the location of the image. After you place the object pin on the paper template, youll attempt
to align several pairs of alignment pins with where the image of the object pin appears in the mirror.
3. Place two more pins into the corkboard such that they line up with the image of our object
pin seen in the mirror, such as in the example depicted in Figure 4. (It may help to elevate
your view a bit above the corkboard.) For simplicity, you may wish to place these two new
pins such that they appear to line up with the image of lines 1 or 2 already drawn on the
template.

Reflection of Light
4. At a different viewing position, place two more pins, again aligning these pins with the
image of the object pin. You may choose to place a third set of pins if you wish.
5. Set the mirror aside for the moment, and use your ruler to draw lines connecting each pair of
aligned pins. (You can leave the pins in the corkboard and hold your ruler against them, or
remove the pins and draw your lines through the holes they left behind.) Extend these lines to
find the location where they cross. The location where they cross is where the image of our
object pin appeared to be located.
6. At the point where the reflected rays cross, draw a line down to the principal axis,
representing the image arrow. Measure the distance between the location of this image and
the shiny surface of the mirror. This is the image distance, s. Also measure the object
distance, s, the distance between the object and the surface of the mirror.
Object distance, s: _____________
Image distance, s: _____________

Q2. How does your object distance compare to your image distance?

7. Measure the height of the image h and the height of the object h.
Object height, h: _____________
Image height, h: _____________
Q3. How does your image height compare to your object height? Is the image upright or
inverted?

Q4. What is the magnification M of this plane mirror (cf. Eq. 5.)?

Activity 2: Convex Mirrors


8. Setup the Convex Mirror Template and the convex mirror on the cork board, again with the
mirrored (shiny) side facing the object arrow. Place a pin at the tip of the object arrow to be
used as our object pin.
Q5. Describe, in your own words, the image of the object arrow you see in the mirror.

Reflection of Light
9. As before, place two pins into the corkboard such that they line up with the image of our
object pin. You will probably want to place your two new pins such that they appear to line
up with the image of lines 1 or 2 already drawn on the template. Do this for at least two
pairs of pins.
10. Remove the mirror, and draw the lines indicating the reflected light rays of the object pin,
extending them all until they cross. From the point where the reflected rays cross, draw a
perpendicular line to the principal axis, representing the image arrow.
Q6. Is the image upright or inverted? Enlarged or reduced? Virtual or real?

11. Measure the image distance, s, and the object distance, s. Knowing these two values (and
keeping our sign conventions in mind!), calculate the focal distance f for this mirror. Record
these quantities in the table below.
12. From your knowledge of s and s, calculate the lateral magnification M of this mirror. Record
this magnification in the table below.
13. Recall that the lateral magnification also relates the image height and the object height (cf.
Eq. 5). Measure the object height, and using your calculated value for the magnification M,
calculate a predicted value for the image height. After youve recorded your object height
and predicted image height in the table below, measure the actual image height and record it
in the table as well.
Table 1: Convex Mirror
Object distance s
Image distance S
Focal length f
Lateral magnification M
Object height h
Image height (predicted)
h
Image height (measured)

Q7. How well does your predicted value of the image height compare with your actual measured
value obtained from your ray-tracing?

Activity 3: Concave Mirrors


14. Setup the Concave Mirror Template and the concave mirror on the cork board, again with
the mirrored (shiny) side facing the object arrow. Place a pin at the tip of the object arrow to
be used as our object pin. It will be necessary for you to line up your pairs of pins with the
images of lines 1 and 2 already drawn on the template.

Reflection of Light
15. When you are looking at the reflected image of a line drawn
on the template, you should see two separate halves to it that
seem to veer off to the right or the left. When you place your
eye directly along the reflection of this line, you should see
two separate images of the ray converge as shown here. Place
your pins so that they line up with this cross-over point (ask
your teaching assistant for help if you have difficulty here).
16. Line up a pair of pins with both of the rays on the template. Remove the mirror, and draw the
lines indicating the reflected rays of light from the object. Extend the lines to the point where
they cross, and fill out the following table (repeating the procedure in steps 1113).
Table 2: Concave Mirror
Object distance s
Image distance s
Focal length f
Lateral magnification M
Object height h
Image height (predicted)
h
Image height (measured)

Q8. Is the image upright or inverted? Enlarged or reduced? Virtual or real?

Q9. How well does your predicted value of the image height compare with your actual measured
value obtained from your ray-tracing?

Analysis
Q10. You used the mirror equation to determine the focal length of the concave and convex
mirrors. Describe an independent method you could use to determine the focal length of the
convex and concave mirrors. (Hint: you may be able to use the reflected rays of lines 1 or 2
drawn on the template to help you find the focal point.)

Reflection of Light
Plane Mirror Template

2
Convex Mirror Template

2
Concave Mirror Template

You might also like