Lab 8: Concave and Convex Mirrors (9) s

Purpose:

The purpose of this lab is to examine the property of concave and convex mirrors and derive the ray diagram for the corresponding mirrors.

Method:

• In this lab we will observe the image produce by convex and concave mirror by varying the distance between the object and the mirror. We will also determine the significance of focal length and curvature property of the mirror to determine the orientation and property of the image.

Figure 1: Convex Mirror

• The image produce by the convex mirror has similar orientation to the object but is decrease in size. The image dimension will decrease when the object distance increase.

Figure 2: Concave Mirror

• The image produce by the concave mirror is upright if the image is inside the radius of curvature, however the image is inverted when the object distance is outside the radius of curvature

Figure 3: Convex Mirror Ray Diagram

Figure 4: Concave Mirror Ray Diagram

Conclusion:

In this lab we have examined the behavior of concave and convex mirrors by summarizing the actions of light through ray diagram. We evidences and validates the general behavior of image production by analyzing the reflection of light rays on the surface of mirrors. We found that convex mirror can only produce upright and virtual image that is smaller than the real object. This behavior is due to the location of the focal length. Since the object distance cannot penetrate the vertex and exceed the focal point the image is outside of the curvature and focal length. However in a concave mirror, the image is more complex. When the object distance decrease, the image became upright and smaller. When the object distance increase, the image became bigger and inverted. The transition between these two behavior is located on the radius of curvature and focal length. The behavior is logical as the light ray in concave mirror behaves according to the reflection equation.