• Cralder@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    This is actually really interesting and I think about it every time I look in a large mirror. IIRC it is because the mirror is always “halfway” between you and your mirror image. So as you step back your mirror image gets further away and looks smaller, but so does the mirror.

    • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 month ago

      Nah if u step back far enough it should show your whole body. The only exception being if its angled weirdly or if its not flat but curved in a special way.

      • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Nope, the geometry actually works out such that it doesn’t matter your distance from the mirror, only how tall the mirror is and how high it’s mounted.

        A mirror that is as half as tall as your, mounted at head height, will show your white body regardless of how far away you are from it. TECHNICALLY, the bottom edge must be halfway between your eyes and feet, and the top edge must be halfway between your eyes and top of head.

      • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
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        1 month ago

        If you’d be so kind, how far do you have to get away from a flat mirror to show your whole image?

        • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 month ago

          Depends on the size of the mirror and how far it is off the ground. If its a full sized 2m tall mirror then the min distance is obviously zero. If its a small bathroom sink mirror that doesnt go down to the floor, then you need to be really far away, further than you can be in a bathroom.

          • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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            1 month ago

            Uhhh no, that’s not how angles work.

            The further you get away from a mirror, the “further away” the reflection is. You will never see your whole body in a hand mirror, even if you put it on the moon.

            • candybrie@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              The reflection being further is the point? The further away something is, the smaller it looks, so the less of your field of view it takes up, the more you can see of it.

              If I put my hand on my eye, I can’t see much of it. If I pull my hand back, I can see more of it. If I put a mirror on my eye, I can only see my eye. If I put it back, I can see my face because the reflection of my face is further (i.e. smaller).

              I’m very confused what you’re trying to say.

              • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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                1 month ago

                Ok, visualize it like this:

                Draw yourself, with a small mirror at head height, a meter away. Draw your reflection at the same distance from the mirror on the other side.

                Now do that again, but place the mirror 10 times further. Then draw lines from your eye, to the edge of the mirror, and to the reflection.

                You’ll reach the same point on your reflection.

                Edit: or let the BBC do it for you; https://www.bbc.co.uk/bang/images/dallas_mirror_diagram_large.gif

                • candybrie@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  Ok, I can see the point, but it’s not usually what people mean when they can see their whole body. In that example, you’re looking down or looking up. You never see your whole body at the same time. For your whole body to be entirely in your field of view, it absolutely does matter how close or far you are from the mirror. You can test it by going closer and further to any mirror.

  • Prime@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 month ago

    Its a basic physics thing. You see not more of your body when you take a step back. That is normal and expected.

    • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      People just don’t understand mirrors.

      I did a horrifying experiment in uni with a mirror on the wall, and asked people to point at where they thought they could see their reflection . The obvious answer is of course “when you’re next to it”. A terrifyingly large number of people at a University assumed they could see themselves at a 45 to 60 degree angle, so several step before they actually reached the mirror.

      Some of them were even shocked when they walked along it.

  • toothbrush@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 month ago

    Has Mirror technology changed

    Oh thats an easy answer! That just means THEY ARE COMING THE FOG IS COMING THE FOG IS COMING THE FOG IS COMING THE FOG IS COMING THE FOG IS COMING THE FOG IS COMING THE FOG IS

    • pkmkdz@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      I was going to say it’s pretty depressing, but then I’ve remembered waking up in general in this awful world is

    • Codex@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Huh, never saw this one but in high school I had a dream just like this. I met a beautiful woman, perfect in every way, we got married had some kids, I even got some ways into middle age. Then, I was sitting in chair and noticed that my vision seemed… blurry at the edges, in a very “vignette filter” kind of way and I immediately knew I was dreaming. Woke up just as the existential collapse started. For several years after I’d try to remember her face, what our love had felt like, any of the details that had seemed so solid and tantalizing real for those few sleeping hours.

      In retrospect, a lot like that Rick and Morty episode with the life simulator game. I wonder if one of the writers ever had that dream too? Brains are weird, and I haven’t any dreams nearly that all encompassing since.

      • Maalus@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I had a dream like that about an ex. Everything perfect, house, kids, the whole thing. It felt like one of those super realistic dreams too. I woke up and got a panic attack that fucked me over for 3 or 4 days when I realized it was just a dream. Human psyche is scary as fuck sometimes.

  • taiyang@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I know you’re going for creepy buuuut I read it more like a dude who doesn’t get what a painting is.

  • Ludrol@szmer.info
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    1 month ago

    It’s because you are a vampire and mirrors are no longer made out of silver. Just good old aluminium.

  • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Mirror technology timeline!
    Chirality ‘n’ shit.

    A mirror’s primary surface - a metal like silver that has just one electron sticking out alone in the top atomic orbital, plus other free electrons sliding around the surface, I believe - absorbs photons, then re-emits new photons almost exactly like the ones that came in.