In this diagram plane waves reflect off a parabolic mirror to form waves converging onto a focal point.

Reflections in a spherical convex mirror. The photographer is seen at top right

The Asian elephant can recognise its own reflection in a mirror

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Mirrors

A mirror is a flat surface that has good specular reflection; that is, it is smooth enough to form an image. The most familiar type of mirror is the plane mirror, which has a flat surface. more...

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Curved mirrors are also used, to produce magnified or demagnified images or focus light or simply distort the reflected image.

Mirrors are most commonly used for personal grooming, decoration, and architecture. Mirrors are also used in scientific apparatus such as telescopes and lasers, cameras, and industrial machinery. Most mirrors are designed for visible light, however, mirrors designed for other wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation are also used, especially in optical instruments.

History

The first mirrors used by man were most likely pools of dark, still water, or water collected in a primitive vessel of some sort. The earliest manufactured mirrors were pieces of polished stone such as obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic glass. Examples of obsidian mirrors found in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) have been dated to around 6000 BC. Polished stone mirrors from central and south America date from around 2000 BC onwards.

Mirrors of polished copper were crafted in Mesopotamia from 4000 BC, and in ancient Egypt from around 3000 BC. The use of polished metal mirrors â€“ copper, tin, bronze, silver and gold, and later steel and pewter â€“ continued through the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations into the Middle Ages. In China, bronze mirrors were manufactured from around 2000 BC.

Metal-coated glass mirrors are said to have been invented in Sidon (modern-day Lebanon) in the first century AD, and glass mirrors backed with gold leaf are mentioned by the Roman author Pliny in his Natural History, written in about 77 AD. The Romans also developed a technique for creating crude mirrors by coating blown glass with molten lead.

Some time during the early Renaissance, European manufacturers perfected a superior method of coating glass with a tin-mercury amalgam. The exact date and location of the discovery is unknown, but in the 16th century, Venice, a city famed for its glass-making expertise, became a centre of mirror production using this new technique. Glass mirrors from this period were extremely expensive luxuries. The Saint-Gobain factory, founded by royal initiative in France, was an important manufacturer, and Bohemian and German glass, often rather cheaper, was also important.