Right becomes left and left becomes right. But why? Lateral Inversion Explained.

[@keshavkhandelwal2207]

PERFECT EXPLANATION ON ENTIRE INTERNET TO THE QUESTION THAT 'ALTHOUGH A MIRROR DOES NOT SWAP THE LEFT AND RIGHT SIDES OF AN IMAGE, BUT STILL WE SEE THE IMAGE TO BE LATERALLY INVERTED!' THANKS A LOT FOR A BRILLIANT EXPLANATION!

[@Allomerus]

Spiro has right the building! Great work!

[@JTient]

My 4 year old self facing off against Emmy who seemed so smug about being wrong. "Tis is your left..NO THIS IS YOUR LEFT. My Mom in the other room you're both right now keep it down! Nope I'm right. Mom spun me around looking down, "Which is your left hand?" This one. "And is it on the same side Emmys one on when you faced her." "Yeah, Go it? Yeah we're both right. 30 years later on KZbin I now have a name for what happened.

[@withacommaafterdearest]

this was the explanation that saved me, thanks! I was super confused before watching this, and the ideas were laid out really nicely and simply!

[@StXGaMeRalli]

Brilliant video

[@shashvatpandey3028]

Thankyou sir!

[@HAMZABINLADEN987]

Tysm! This helped me for my exam

[@nehakushwaha1841]

Thank you ma'am

[@chrisg3030]

I put a mirror edge on up against my computer screen and vertically between those two pictures of Alexander on horseback. I faced the mirror left and I saw a reflection of the left hand picture, and it was identical in every respect to your right hand picture. So what do you mean when you say of the right hand picture "Unlike a mirror image the sword is pointing in the opposite sideways direction". Surely it 𝘪𝘴 a mirror image however it was generated.

[@LiacosEM]

If you face a mirror, hold a sword in your left hand, and point it towards your left, your mirror image will be holding the sword in its right hand but the mirror image of the sword will still be pointing in the same direction as the actual sword. However, if someone takes a photo of you and then flips the image horizontally, the sword faces in the opposite lateral direction. I see the two situations as being different.

[@chrisg3030]

@@LiacosEM So if we were say just behind the Alex in the left hand picture, and looking into a big mirror placed in front of him and his horse, we wouldn't see that right hand picture? What would we see?

[@LiacosEM]

@@chrisg3030 I see what you mean!! But as an observer standing behind him, we would see Alexander's back in real life and his front in the mirror image. So yes the horizontal flip is the same but in a horizontal flip, the original and the flipped image don't change front and back. Mirror images always do. Anyone pointing towards the mirror sees himself or herself in the mirror point back in the opposite direction.

[@chrisg3030]

@@LiacosEM "Anyone pointing towards the mirror sees himself or herself in the mirror point back in the opposite direction." But why can't we call it the same direction? If I point to the left, so does the mirror image, so it's the same direction. If I point ahead so does the mirror image, so it's the same direction. And if I mark a spot on the mirror directly in front of me and point to it, so does the mirror me, so we're pointing in the same direction, even when our ambiguous language allows us to call it the "opposite" direction.. As I say in our other thread, there's no axis or direction that's privileged for image inversion, lateral, back to front or upside down. The rule is in all cases as you state it at 1:51 "An object's distance is the same distance behind the mirror as the object is in front of the mirror". That applies to my finger tip and its image whether I'm pointing ahead, sideways, or upwards. Lastly, I'm still puzzled by what you mean about the two Alex pictures. How do you account for the undeniable fact that when we hold up a mirror vertically between them as I describe in my original question, so that the mirror faces left and captures an image of the left hand picture so that we see both picture and image of it, that image is exactly the same as the right hand picture? Did you try doing that yourself?

[@chrisg3030]

0:48 "Why don't up and down swap over too?" You never get to answer that question in the video, but never mind. The short answer is that up and down do swap over on occasion. Ever seen a reflection of a mountain in a lake, or of trees along the shore line? They're pretty upside down. Of course the big difference is that the water surface is horizontal, whereas you discussed vertical mirrors. But if you were to lie on your side on a floating raft or something, then that view would become just like in a vertical mirror, if the real treetops are to the left of their trunks then the image treetops would be to the right.

[@LiacosEM]

Yes, I was discussing only vertical mirrors. Up and down don't change because if you invert front and back, up and down don't change.

[@chrisg3030]

@@LiacosEM But if you invert up and down, front and back don't change. Where does that get us? I think your observation at 1:51 is the simplest rule if we apply it completely. "An object's distance is the same distance behind the mirror as the object is in front of the mirror". That not only applies to your example when the arrow head is nearest to the mirror and its tail farthest, but also when its head and tail are both the same distance from the mirror, as when the arrow is lined up sideways to the mirror. This rule would be violated if the arrow's image were pointing in the opposite direction (though interestingly this is the kind of inversion that happens with a pinhole camera). This nearest to the nearest and furthest from the furthest rule applies whatever direction we turn the object, left to right, back to front, upside down. There's no exceptional direction or axis, such as back to front.

[@nuwindudamsara7147]

Thank you very much

[@ITXPiyush01]

😅

[@chrisg3030]

Sorry if my replies 9 months ago seemed a bit querulous. This time I want to go on a different tack. I'm lying on a bed face to face with my partner. My right ear is on the bedsheet, but her left ear is, just as the left ear of a mirror image of myself would be if I was lying there looking into a mirror instead. However it seems ridiculous to ask since me and my partner's left and right swap over, why don't our up and down too, so we're looking at each others' toes. The problem seems to have nothing particularly to do with mirrors at all. It would in fact be quite easy to arrange things so we were lying head to toe like that. But then if my right ear is still on the sheet, this time her right ear would be as well. It's as if only one inversion happens at a time. We just have different word pairs for it.

[@LiacosEM]

I agree that the problem probably has nothing particularly to do with mirrors. PE teachers often indicate to their students to move to the left while motioning with their own right hand towards the right. It's because the teacher is facing in the opposite direction that the teacher's right is the students' left. With mirrors, it's the same thing. The mirror reverses front and back, so left and right swap over because left and right are defined by what's front and back.

[@kirbydirby2003]

Interesting

[@alokgupta6154]

Hello sir

[@annupatel6986]

Tha😂😂