Question

The figure shows a point object O in front of a plane mirror PQ. Complete the ray diagram and locate the image of O.

Answer 1

1. From the object O rays of light travels in all directions.
2. To show the formation of the image by the plane mirror, we consider two rays coming from the object O which falls on the mirror.
3. OA and OB be the two rays incident from the object O which get reflected from the mirror in directions AC and BD.
4. When we see from the positions C and D, the rays between C and D appear to come from some point I behind the mirror.
5. Point I is the image of the object O.
6. To locate the position of I, reflected rays AC and BD are produced backward, and the point where they meets gives the position of the image I.
7. The image is virtual because the reflected rays AC and BD actually don't meet at I. But to our eye, they appear to come from I.