Mirrors

Look into the mirror and what do you see? You see yourself. But when you move, you do everything backward in the mirror! If you wave your left hand, your right hand waves in the mirror. If you wink your right eye, your left eye winks. Try to read a page in the mirror. The words will be backward. What is really happening? You do not see through the glass of a mirror as you do through a window. The glass of a mirror has a silver coating on the back. The light from the sun or a bulb bounces off you, goes into the mirror, and bounces straight back out to you again. Mirrors have been used for thousands of years. The earliest were round pieces of shiny metal. Glass mirrors came later. Early people thought that a mirror was magic. They did not understand how it worked. They thought they saw then-spirits in a mirror and that breaking a mirror brought bad luck. Today mirrors have many uses. For example, they can make rooms look bigger and prettier. They also show us if our hair is combed and our faces are clean. On cars, buses, and trucks, mirrors help drivers see traffic behind them. Mirrors are also used in telescopes and searchlights. Fun houses use mirrors. They make people look funny. Some mirrors are curved to make people seem short and round or tall and thin. Fun-house mirrors make people laugh at themselves.