Why does the reflection of my car in a car that’s in front of me sometimes appear upside down and sometimes not?

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Why does the reflection of my car in a car that’s in front of me sometimes appear upside down and sometimes not?

In: Physics

Anonymous 0 Comments

It depends if the reflecting surface is convex (curved out towards you) or concave (curved out away from you).

Look at your face reflecting in both sides of a spoon for another example.

You can imagine that light traveling from the top of your car is reflected downwards, in the concave case, and will be perceived at the bottom of the image.