Question

A cat sitting on a table looks at its image in a plane mirror and hits the mirror with its paw causing the mirror to rotate by an angle of $\theta$ to the left w.r.t. the vertical axis. What will be the nature of the image? (assume the cat is seen completely in the mirror.)

• A. The image of the cat gets rotated by an angle $2\theta$ to the right.
• B. The image of the cat gets rotated by an angle $2\theta$ to the left.
• C. The image of the cat appears to be rotated by an angle $\theta$ to the right with respect to the mirror.
• D. The image of the cat gets tilted along with the mirror.

Answer 1

The correct option is C The image of the cat appears to be rotated by an angle $\theta$ to the right with respect to the mirror.

When the mirror is rotated, the image of the cat remains the same.
But, with respect to the mirror, the cat has rotated by an angle of $\theta$ towards the right. Therefore, the image of the cat will be rotated by an angle of $\theta$ towards the right with respect to the mirror.