# Letters in Mirrors **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 20, 2001, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letters-in-mirrors/88533 "2001-10-20T01:28:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Qwertyasdfg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ecc23a/32.png) [@Qwertyasdfg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwertyasdfg)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letters-in-mirrors/88533/1 "2001-10-20T01:28:47Z")
Why do letters appear backwards in mirrors? Just curious. ---
**Author:** ![Violet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ebca7d/32.png) [@Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Violet)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letters-in-mirrors/88533/2 "2001-10-20T01:34:13Z")
Hmm. I thought everything appeared backwards in mirrors. Except for vampires who may not appear at all. šŸ˜‰ ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letters-in-mirrors/88533/3 "2001-10-20T01:46:38Z")
Itā€™s not so much that they appear backwards as it is youā€™re looking at them from the other side. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letters-in-mirrors/88533/4 "2001-10-20T01:59:00Z")
I thought it was our eyes and brains canā€™t comprehend the whole reflected light thing properly, but I could be wrong (and probably am.) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letters-in-mirrors/88533/5 "2001-10-20T04:27:48Z")
Stuff in mirrors is reversed front-to-back, not left-to-right. That is, perpendicular to the plane of the mirror. However, to view something in the mirror, you have to rotate to paper or book 180[sup]o[/sup] to get it to face the mirror. This rotation is where the left-to-right reversal comes from. Iā€™m sure weā€™ve had threads on mirrors before, but Iā€™ll leave it to the interested reader to search for them. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letters-in-mirrors/88533/6 "2001-10-20T10:53:01Z")
The column doesnā€™t appear to be online, but Cecil answered this one on p. 81 of [More of the Straight Dope](https://securesite.chireader.com/cgi-bin/dopestore/buystuff.bat#motsd) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letters-in-mirrors/88533/7 "2001-10-20T12:17:16Z")
What was the answer? ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letters-in-mirrors/88533/8 "2001-10-20T17:58:35Z")
Ok, itā€™s been a while since Iā€™ve done any of this, and I donā€™t know how much I can explain what I know on a Messageboard, but here goes: Letters arenā€™t the only things that appear ā€œinvertedā€. So do you (go look in a mirror and youā€™ll see!) The reason for this is that light is reflected directly back at you from the point which it comes from. By that I mean that the light bouncing off you, making you able to see you, hits a mirror and bounces back at the same angle that it hits the mirror. So when youā€™re standing in front of a mirror, the reflection of your right arm hits the mirror and comes back more or less at the same place. Thats why it looks like your right arm is in the place where a persons left arm would be if they were facing you IRL. (I canā€™t do this without a diagram!!!). Does this make sense? I think linking to a webpage about mirrors and how they work would be appropriate now, because Iā€™m clearly making a fool of myself here: [http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/gbssci/phys/Class/refln/u13l1c.html](http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/gbssci/phys/Class/refln/u13l1c.html) Hope this helps. (proably more than I did!) ---
**Author:** ![Hombre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecb155/32.png) [@Hombre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hombre)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letters-in-mirrors/88533/9 "2001-10-20T19:59:21Z")
When I was young I noticed that things seemed to appear reversed side to side but not top to bottom (looking at yourself, for example, your left was your right, but your ā€˜topā€™ was still your top). I always assumed this was because your eyes were side by side not ā€˜stackedā€™. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2001, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letters-in-mirrors/88533/10 "2001-10-20T20:04:56Z")
Imagine it this way. Imagine that an image in a mirror could be seen from both sides. If you are standing next to a person and youā€™re both looking in the mirror, you are seeing a ā€œreversedā€ image. But if you were to leave your friend and walk around behind the mirror, you would see a ā€œnormalā€ image of your friend. The image in a mirror isnā€™t reversed, youā€™re just looking at it from the wrong side. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2001, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letters-in-mirrors/88533/11 "2001-10-21T23:59:48Z")
The problem is in thinking of things in terms of left-right, rather than absolute directions. My bathroom mirror, for instance, is on a west wall, so if I stand in front of it, my right arm is to the north. If I raise my north arm, _my image also raises its north arm_. In other words, there is no reversal of sides in the mirror. There is, however, a front-back reversal: My nose is pointing west, but my imageā€™s nose is pointing east. The reason we interpret this as a left-right reversal is that weā€™re used to seeing other people. If thereā€™s someone in front of me, and they turn around to face me, theyā€™ll almost always do so by turning horizontally, rather than doing a somersault. Hence, when I see my image in the mirror, my brain processes it as ā€œThat person on the other side of the glass has turned around horizontally to face meā€, so it looks like its north arm should be its left arm. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2001, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letters-in-mirrors/88533/12 "2001-10-22T04:49:02Z")
Look in a mirror. Wave your left hand. If what you were really looking at was your twin (and not your reflection) theyā€™d appear to be waving their right hand. Hereā€™s where the confusion lies - you imagine the image to be ā€˜reversedā€™ because you are thinking in terms of left and right, and mistaking the image as being another human being. But itā€™s not, it is merely a direct reflection. If it _was_ in reverse, then the hand _diagonally opposite_ to your left would be waving. And your head would be facing an image of your feet. It is not a reversed image, it is a _reflected_ image.