WHAT YOU NEED : Bendable Plastic Mirror, Large Shiny Metal Spoon DESCRIBE IMAGES IN CURVED MIRRORS Hold the bendable mirror as flat as possible a foot or two in front of your face. Different curved mirrors can be formed by bendingthe two sides toward you or away from you. When the edges are bent away from you or bending the top or bottom toward you or away from you. When the edges are bent away from you, the mirror is called CONVEX MIRROR. When the edges are bent toward you, the mirror is called CONCAVE MIRROR. Only a very gentle curving is needed to produce many different effects. Try to keep your fingers off the mirror surface. See if you can make each of these situations and tell which way you had to bend the mirror surface. 1) Make an image of your head which is right side up but thinner than normal. Explain how you did it. 2) Make an image of your head which is upside down. Expalin how you did it. 3) Make an image of your head which has four eyes. Expalin how you did it. 4) Make an image of your head which is right side up but not as tall as normal. Expalin how you did it. 5) Look at the image of a pencil point inside a spoon. Move the pencil close to the spoon and then far away from it. Describe what happens to the image. 6) Turn the spoon around the outside surface. Look at the image of the pencil point again as you move the pencil close to yhe spoon and then far away from the spoon. Describe what happens to the image. WHAT IS THIS USEFUL FOR Mirrors can be used to form images just as lenses are. PARABOLIC (dish-shaped) mirrors can focus energy to a point (the focal point). They can focus sounds to a microphone or microves to a TV sattelite dish aerial. They can focus light and other kinds of waves from stars onto photographic film. Parabolic mirrors can also be used to send energy. Headlights in cars and flashlights have their bulbs at the focal point of a parabolic reflector which causes the light to come out in a parallel beam.

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URL: http://acept.la.asu.edu/PiN/opticskit/expt/experiment9.shtml