Convex and Concave Mirrors

Objective
Study the difference between convex and concave mirror and the way images are created by them.

Convex mirror

1. The image is upright, smaller than the object, and the image distance is closer to the mirror than the object.

2. When the object moves closer to the mirror, the image gets larger (but still small than the object). And the image is still upright. Object distance become less larger than the image distance.

3. When the object moves further from the mirror, the image gets smaller, and it is still upright. Object distance becomes much larger than the image distance.

Concave mirror

Example

p>f

 

p<f

1. The image is smaller than the object, and it is inverted. The distance between object and the mirror is greater than the distance between image and the mirror.

2. The image becomes upright and the size is larger than the object. Image is closer to the mirror than the object.

3.Image is still smaller than the object and inverted. The difference of distance become lager.

Conclusion

convex mirror

The image is always upright and smaller than the object.

convave mirror

 When the object is close to the mirror, the image is upright and larger than the object, while the image is inverted and smaller than the object when the object is far from the mirror.