Question

What information does the magnification by a mirror give about the size and nature of the image?

Answer 1

The magnification by the mirror is expressed by two formulas as given below.
$m=-\frac{v}{u}=\frac{h_i}{h_o}$
Here, $v,u,h_{i}and{h}_o$ represents the position of the formed image from the mirror, the position of the object from the mirror, the height (size) of the image, and the height (size) of the object respectively.

1. If the magnification produced by the mirror is less than one, it implies that the size of the image is less than the size of the object.
2. If the magnification by the mirror is more than one, it suggests that the size of the image formed by the mirror is greater than the size of the object.
3. If the value of the magnification is equal to unity, it means that the size of the image and the size of the object are exactly the same.
4. If the magnification is a positive value, it implies that the image formed is erect in nature while if the value of the magnification is negative, it implies that the image formed is inverted in nature.