Plane mirror height

Classical Mechanics Level 2

How tall, in feet, must a mirror be for a 6-ft-tall man to be able to see his entire reflection?


The answer is 3.

July Thomas by July Thomas , 30, USA

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2 solutions

2 Helpful 0 Interesting 2 Brilliant 3 Confused
July Thomas
Jun 9, 2016

Imagine light from the man's feet. It will travel to the mirror, bounce off, then travel to the man's eyeballs. Since it will be vertically displaced 3 feet before even reaching the mirror, the mirror itself only needs to be 3 feet tall.

3 Helpful 0 Interesting 0 Brilliant 2 Confused

The minimum length the mirror has to be to see the full object's reflection is (object's height/2)

Abishek Thiyagarajan - 3 months, 3 weeks ago

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