Sorry if this seems like a dumb question, but I have trouble understanding the concave mirror diagrams.
For example, a candle is resting on the ground(the principal axis), they will draw the reflected candle as if it’s not even in the mirror and it’s underneath the ground. I get confused and ask myself, “How can a candle reflect in the ground? And how can the light rays go through the ground?”
In: 1
It wouldn’t actually be visible if the ground were there. All you would be able to see in the mirror would be the ground. Instead, what we are looking at is the candle in isolation. It’s just to show you that the image is inverted and in real space, and therefore, a real image.
What’s important to an image is the angle at which different rays of light reach your eye (or a camera or other detector). When there’s a mirror, the reflected light comes from a different angle, but your eyes don’t “know” that. It’s as though the light came from a different place, and what they’re drawing is what that different place *would be* if the light had been traveling in a straight line.
Why does the ground have to match the principal axis? I’m really confused about what you’re asking. Could you share a link to one of these images? I looked for concave mirror diagrams and didn’t find one yet.
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