Why do letters appear backwards in a mirror

As he looks out his windshield, he can see the word without turning his head. As a result, he can read the word correctly. The word does not seem flipped left to right to him because he has not turned his head. This counter-intuitive notion arises from the fact that when we turn our head, we unconsciously rotate a word so that it reads correctly. For instance, consider that you are standing in a long, narrow garage in between two vehicles. A car is parked on your left with its front grill facing you and a van is parked on your right, also with its front grill facing you.

In order to have some fixed reference frame, let's call the wall right in front of you the main wall. You are supposed to paint the words so that someone looking directly at the front of each vehicle reads them correctly with no mirrors involved.

The main wall is the wall closest to the car's passenger side and closest to the van's driver's side. In order to make it read correctly, you put the letter "P" closest to the main wall, and the rest of the letters stretch away from the green wall. To make it read correctly, you now paint the letter "P" farthest from the main wall, and the rest of the letters stretch towards the main wall. Do you see what is happening?

In relation to a fixed reference frame the main wall , you painted the word in one direction on the car and in the opposite direction on the van in order to make them both read correctly. Why did you do this? Why letters are inverted in the mirror? Why do mirrors flip horizontally but not vertically? Like it? Facebook Google. Consider this, when you look at yourself in a mirror, it appears to you that your reflection is another person who looks just like you standing behind a piece of glass, at the same distance from the glass as yourself and facing you.

To get there, you reason, that person walked behind the glass and - here's the important bit - turned degrees about the vertical axis to face you. In fact this assumption is wrong. Your reflection didn't do a degree turn. It was reversed front to back with no rotation at all. Your brain mentally subtracts the degree turn that you assume must have happened from the observed front to back reversal and what do you get?

An apparent left to right reversal! Mike Burton, Twickenham UK The mirror does not reverse images from left to right, it reverses them from front to back relative to the front of the mirror. Stand facing a mirror. Point to one side. You and your mirror image are pointing in the same direction. Point to the front. Your mirror image is pointing in the opposite direction to you. Point upwards. You both point in the same direction. Now stand sideways on to the mirror and repeat. You are now pointing in opposite directions when you point sideways.

Place the mirror on the floor and stand on it. This time you point in opposite directions when you point upwards and your upside down image points downwards. In all cases the direction reverses only when you point towards or away from the mirror. The answer stems from the fact that a reflection is not the same as a rotation.

Our bodies have a strong left-right symmetry, and we try to interpret the reflection as a rotation about a central vertical axis. Such a rotation would put the head and feet where we expect them, but leaves the left and right sides of the body on opposite sides to where they appear in the reflection.

But if instead we imagine the world to have been rotated about a horizontal axis running across the mirror, this would leave you standing on your head, but would keep the left and right sides of your body in the expected positions. So whether you see the image as left-right inverted or top-bottom inverted, or for that matter inverted about any other axis, depends upon which axis you unconsciously and erroneously imagine the world has been rotated about.

If you lie on the floor in front of a mirror you can observe both effects at once. The room appears left-right reflected about its vertical axis, while you interpret your body as being left-right reflected about a horizontal axis running from head to foot.

My mirrors don't reverse anything, each section of mirror simply reflects what is directly in front of it. Hence whatever is on my right as I look into the mirror will be on the right in the mirror.

Nothing's been reversed it's just a reflection, that's all. Seth, Edinburgh UK Lie on your side and look in a mirror. Now what sort of reversal is it? A mirror image is not left-right reversal, it is simply a mirror image. They would read from left to right for you, as does this text on the video monitor. By the way, have you ever noticed that Ambulances use this illusion by writing the word "Ambulance" backwards on the front of their vehicle.

They do this because when you see the vehicle through your rearview mirror the word Ambulance appears normal and then you are absolutely certain about what is behind you. Up down is not a problem because the reflected image is up just as you would expect it to be if the object was really opposite you.

If you are still doubtful as this explanation lets look at the following photo which I took of myself in front of a mirror. The forefinger of my right hand is on the camera button that takes the photograph.

Notice that it is on your right.