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*beg

Sending this video to Beggar's Canyon to plea for a little attention - beg requested by original submitter reiwan.

Here's a question @reiwan or anyone who's into Physics.

Why does it act like a mirror when it is not reflecting off of anything?

Both the words reflecting and mirror are somewhat misleading when describing the physics behind mirages because neither of which are actually involved with what is going on. The light is actually bending because its following the path of least resistance (through the hotter air above the road). But its described as if it is "reflecting from a mirror" because that is something that people are familiar with, but in essence is really a lie.

>> ^Tymbrwulf:

Why does it act like a mirror when it is not reflecting off of anything?

@reiwan, I get that part, but if you look closely at the last few seconds of the video, the image coming from the mirage is upside-down, while the image of the car is right-side-up.

I'm just trying to figure out why the act of the light bending reverses the image, since it is not reflecting.

@Tymbrwulf

I hope this makes sense, im more of a visual person, so writing it out might sound confusing...

Imagine theres individual photons of light reflecting off of the car that is giving you the information of what the car looks like. Now recall the part in the video about the angle of incidence. Parts of the car that are closer to the ground are going to reach their angle of incidence closer to the car (from where you are standing), while higher parts of the car are going to reach this point closer to you from where you are standing. So now if you imagine yourself standing there, looking at the mirage, the image will appear upside down because the varying angles of incidence "flips" the image.

@reiwan

Fantastic explanation! I guess wasn't taking the angles of incidence into account because I was treating the entire car as a single point (blunder on me, I know). Thank you for the clarification, you explained it well.

*quality Physics here.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by Tymbrwulf.

*learn

Adding video to channels (Learn) - requested by messenger.