In my dad’s family, the “How do it know?” line about the Thermos came from (what I’ll call) a joke where various scientists of different nationalities proposed what the best invention ever was, and the scientist from the place you think the people are stupid says it’s the Thermos with the requisite lines.
Rage Bait is the new clickbait.
Post a video of something stupid - like asking a really weirdly ignorant question about a mirror, or cooking a steak by boiling it, or trying to open a pringles can at the wrong end, or just asserting something that is plainly wrong.
Sit back and watch the views rattle up as the internet marvels at your stupidity, shares your stupidity (with a sense of superiority) amongst their social contacts, comments to try to educate you or belittle you (the algorithm literally doesn’t care which - all comments are engagement).
Ah, is that the name for it? It ain’t nothing new either. It’s been going for years, that I can tell (probably from near the beginnings of YouTube, even), only now it seems people are catching on to it. There’s just so much stuff out there so obviously so stupid and so obviously intended to rile people up that I don’t understand why people take it sincerely. Yes, there’s actual idiots out there, but these idiots are trying too hard. (This particular video doesn’t seem that stupid to me, and it doesn’t seem intuitive. Like I said above, I originally couldn’t tell you why it works – though by now I’ve figured it out – and I took all sorts of science classes in high school and university.)
True - there’s nothing really new under the sun, but social media and in particular, short-form video has provided a fertile breeding ground for rage bait - I will not even click on a video that has ‘wait for it’ or ‘watch to the end’ in the thumbnail or title - usually, there is nothing to see and what you’re supposed to do is watch it several times without even realising it is cunningly looped, then comment on it, angrily demanding to know what the payoff is supposed to be (the video probably still looping and registering views while you engage in the comments).
It works because the internet is also a place where people like to correct things they think are wrong.
A form of “Trolling Lite”, then?
Is this accurate? I’ve always thought that while a mirrored image is identical to a direct image to human perception, the two could be distinguished with accurate enough instruments. For example, some of the photons will be absorbed by the mirror.
Ah, yes, but he played the classic physics game of “assuming a perfect mirror”.
In principle, there’s no way to distinguish the two, but in practice, you could compare the spectrum for both the real object and the mirror object, and conclude which was which. But physicists don’t play that!
Trolling for profit
So in a direct image I look like myself but in a perfectly reflected image I look like a sphere.
Well, I didn’t want to body shame you, but… 
There’s a great post from a programmer saying (paraphrased) “when I need an answer to a programming question, I post it on StackExhange, then immediately log in with a different account and post an obscenely wrong answer. No one wants to help others, but they’ll fall all over themselves to correct someone else.”
Also known as Cunningham’s Law.
All mirrors absorb some of the light, and bathroom mirrors usually aren’t all that efficient, absorbing anywhere from two to ten percent of it, depending how much you paid for it. They can also have tiny imperfections, bends, etc.
Ahh, you get dressed in front of a funhouse mirror, too, I see. We got our “PhunWithPhotonz” mirror (slimming version) from WayFair-To-Middling.com and it’s so good for my self-esteem!
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I think that should be “things that they think are wrong.”
Case in point
So… the orange is the apple, right ?
Could you bounce a ball to hit the object, without touching the paper?
That’s how light do.
I once saw a fascinating object at a science museum. It consisted of two round paraboloid sections, fastened rim to rim like two shallow bowls. There was a round cutout in the center of the top half, and the inner surfaces were all reflective, like the mirror of a reflecting telescope.
If you place a small object, say a die or game piece from a board game, in the center of the bottom “dish”, you will see a perfect 3D image of the object that appears to be resting directly above and outside the object.
If some people can’t understand how an ordinary mirror works, then what would this thing do to their little minds?
You can get those devices fairly cheaply (like <$20). Search for “mirascope”. They are pretty neat.
There was an arcade ‘game’ made with that principle. There was no actual object, a video of an animated figure would appear to hover above a table. One game using the effect was called Time Traveler. It was often called a hologram but was not really.
I wonder now if larger versions of this are ever used in stage magic. ISTM it ought to be very easy to make a large object vanish when the real object was never in view of the audience at all.