This is a pretty use one. As soon as you realize that its not necessary for the image in the mirror to have the same left or right as you (because its two dimensional), the answer becomes obvious.
No... No Richard, not really you over-intelligent bastard! I had to twist my brain until it screamed just to grasp the dynamics of the problem even as you were explaining the solution for said problem >_<
Even from the grave he makes us all look boring and stupid by comparison ;)
@sawmassacre13 The same thing that happens when you think about your thoughts, or when a video camera is pointed in the direction of it's own display.
@sawmassacre13 what you are thinking is impossible, first of all, it will be impossible to align them perfeclty so that light will get stuck between them, the slightes bit will make light bounce in another direction and second.. the mirror is not perfect it has bumps (smaller bumps that ordinary things but bumps none the less) and that will make light bounce in another direction too
@rubentg1 It's a brain teaser (Paradox) ,........I don't think that the problem would be with the alignment or calibration but actually the problem would be seeing the image..... Imagine two 50ft mirrors facing each other about 5ft apart, one of which is an Two-way mirror....You're behind the Two-way mirror and the only light comes from the top where's the space between the mirrors,.. What do you think you would see ? I never done this so I don't know........
@sawmassacre13 exactly the same they would if they where side by side.
a mirror doesn't reflect certain things, it reflects everything we just don't see everything a mirror reflects(like you can't see everything that's on the other side of a window).
@sawmassacre13 The light would just keep bouncing back and forth. So light could come in from the side maybe, and it would keep bouncing back and forth until it missed one of the mirrors.
Extension of the idea - since it just keeps going back and forth, what if you kept adding more light, so there was more and more light bouncing around in between them? I guess it would get really bright in there! You could make it easier by using curved mirrors.
@DoctorFastest it's an interesting question... mabey you have one hole in a mirror that has a flashlight in it. If the light just keeps bouncing back and forth then eventually you'd have an infinite energy density. If course, the problem woud be if you ever tried to do this is that variance in the parallel-ness of the mirrors woils soon send a light ray off the edge, unless you had infinite-sized mirrors - in which case you'd have zero energy density.
@rhcquant Thanks for the response! To solve the problem of the light escaping, you can use mirrors that are slightly curved, like this. ( )
Pretty cool. And it turns out, this is actually how lasers work! Between the mirrors is material called a 'gain medium', a gas that emits extra light when light shines on it. So you shine some light between the mirrors (just like your idea!), it bounces back and forth, the gain medium releases even more light which also bounces back and forth, ...
Haha, in other words you let some of the light out through a hole in one of the mirrors, and a beam of intense light can escape. As long as the 'stimulated emission' from the gain medium (the extra light that the gas between the mirrors is emitting) exceeds the amount of light which you're shooting out, you can sustain the beam.
@sinachiniforoosh ...My question itself is flawed. It's like questioning how old is god, supposing that god created time, the question would just not apply. Mirrors reflect image of light that bounces off of objects. If there are no objects and no light, than there's nothing to reflect. But again, ''nothing'' is hard to imagine as we are used to the idea of something always being somewhere. I mean what if we could see what the mirrors ''see'' when they face each other closely ?
@PikPobedy "Left and right are relative to the observer."
True, but when you point to your left your mirror image also points to your left. Left and right have not been reversed either.
The mistake is in treating the mirror image as a person and defining left/right with respect to that imaginary person.
In fact the image in the mirror has actually been reversed front-to-back, something that can't happen to a real person. If it did, we would have to redefine what we mean by left and right.
@PikPobedy : That's right, but it doesn't explain why, if you were to lie down in front of the mirror, up and down (relative to you) are still okay, while left and right are still reversed. Feynman's explanation, on the other hand, actually addresses the problem.
Top & bottom in that case are defined by head and feet respectively. It is all about semantics. Left and right are relative to a point of view. This is why boats and planes do not refer to left and right but rather to port and starboard. Port, starboard, stern and bow are all relative to the ship and there is no "Do you mean my left or your left?" paradoxes to resolve.
But there's another freaky way: if you have another dimension to go (4D), you can simply jump OUT OF the 3D space, ROTATE there in the 4th dimension and jump again into the 3rd dimension you're familiar with. And then you'll be your mirror image! You'll see that all the world reversed its left and right. All your neighbors would have heart in the right side of their chest (from your perspective; from theirs it'll be you who has the heart on the wrong side!). Freaky isn't it?
The same is true for the 3D space we think we live: no matter how you slide or turn in the space, you can't turn yourself into your mirror image. Your heart will still be on the left side of your chest, and your right hand will still be right. To turn yourself into your mirror image, you'd have to turn yourself inside-out, as Feynman says.
When you have some unequal-sided triangle on top of the table, and number its vertices, then no matter how will you slide id and turn on the table, you'll never get its mirror image version. To do it, you must do what Feynman says: kind of "turn the triangle inside out".
But if you have another dimension to your disposition (space), you can just grab the triangle off the table, ROTATE IT in the air and put on the table again, and THEN it'll be mirrored!
imagine an x,y coordinate plane. Rotating it 180 degrees would flip both the x and y axes. Because we do not see a Y rotation, this isn't what is happening in a mirror. Rather, if you only flip the Z axis, its like looking at that coordinate plane from behind. When you do that, you now see positive x values as negative and vice versa, with out the y values being changed.
Oh man i can write and read english but it's a lot more dificult to understand a person when is speaking, well i would love to be like him some day =D
Line up two mirrors- so that one is behind you and one is in front of you
You should be able to see the mirror behind you in the mirror in front
now wave your left hand if you look in you should see that in the mirror behind u, u r still waving your left hand NOT YOUR RIGHT. This is because its not left and right thats mixed up!
pls tell me if you are still confused
(after reading this replay the video- if u understand this u can understand wht he said!)
Oh I understand! .. look in a mirror, take a pen and put a spot on your face, or if you have beauty spot or mole etc.. .. put a dot on the mirror.. it's easy it's right opposite it. Now imagine or actually do it... spin your head around so the back of your head is facing the mirror .. now think where the spot on your face is and the spot on the mirror. They're facing the same way, but on opposite sides. Maybe I'm dumb. Sorry if it's like the most blatant thing ever.
@bicnarok No it has nothing to do with our eyes being on the horizontal plane; it has to do with us seeing a person reflected inside-out back-to-front (away or towards to the plane of the mirror) and our brain going "oh, that look like a normal person who has turned around to face behind him". Because we are used to seeing people spin around, but have never seen someone morph their face out the back of their head, we subconsciously decide that they spun, thus have their left on our right, etc.
@christhatguy22 err that explanation makes little sense. How can our brain project our own face on an inside out version of ourselves, not only that but if there´s someone or something standing next to you, it is also reflected on the horizontal plane.
I could listen to Feynman all my life and never get tired. He is such a down to earth guy and a great character. A great scientist and a great human being. I miss him alot.
I think that his explanations are kinda... weird, per se. Its like making a very young kid understand physics. At a certain point when I am imagining mirrors in terms of light waves and densities, it becomes harder and harder to understand his explanations.
Looking in a mirror is really looking into another Universe where you are doing the exact same things. So you will find yourself, from a different universe, staring back at you... however in the other universe the front is back. This is my theory on mirrors.
It's actually relatively simple, something I've pondered a lot on, though a bit long to explain in a Youtube comment, so I'll just say this: Figure out why looking into the concave side of a spoon flips the image vertically, and it should be pretty easy to ascertain why a mirror does what it does. It's a matter of the DISTANCE that each individual light wave travels, and the angles at which they individually reflect off the mirror.
now what im thinking is, what exactly is the image we see in the mirror, what is it how does it get there what's it made of??
now to my mind I can only describe it as all different types of light bouncing or coming from our bodies then hitting the mirror bouncing off then returning to our eyes in perpetual motion which continues as long as you stand in front of the mirror.
but the beauty of it is I could be completely wrong, I'm not Richard Feynman Im not a genius.
It does make me lol......this guy thinks in 10 dimensions opposed to most of us, including myself that only just manage 3D..........but some here having trouble with 1D. Watch the video again and try and understand........he is not tying to tell you how a mirror works.
I so wish I had of had a teacher like him........amazing mind
It does make me lol......this guy thinks in 10 dimensions opposed to most of us, including myself that only just manage 3D..........but some here having trouble with 1D. Watch the video again and try and understand........he is not tying to tell you how a mirror works.
I so wish I had of had a teacher like him........amazing mind
Thanks for Uploading Fenynam Chris, you done a lot of work with him over the years, and watching him both as a fellow human and as an Engineer I know why.
@EvTrev11 He's not explaining how it happens so much as why the image looks the way it does to us. I'm pretty sure Richard Feynman knew that mirrors reflect light.
I have NEVER understood why people are having a problem with this, I have never thought that left and right is switched in a mirror, because it's not. If I move my left hand, my left hand in the mirror (which is on the same side as my left hand) moves, simple.
And what keeps a train on the rails: its wheels and its weight. Not very entertaining or difficult to figure out at all. The inner part of the wheel goes down on the inner side of the rail on each side to keep it in place. Stupidity.
I have NEVER understood why people are having a problem with this, I have never thought that left and right is switched in a mirror, because it's not. If I move my left hand, my left hand in the mirror (which is on the same side as my left hand) moves, simple.
And what keeps a train on the rails: its wheels and its weight. Not very entertaining or difficult to figure out at all. The inner part of the wheel goes down on the inner side of the rail on each side to keep it in place. Stupidity.
I remember even as a kid understanding that the mirror doesnt flip things left and right, it just reflected the image exactly as it was right back at you. All you have to do is touch the mirror and you will figure it out.
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
He could have saved time by simply saying that its not the "x" or "y" axis that is flipped, but rather the "z" axis and this video would have by 30 seconds... but not as entertaining I guess.
Well Richard wanted to explain it so even children could udnerstand it, thats what he wanted, not to turn science in some borring equesions but rather to make the reality more interesting
He was right until he said the bit about the reflection being like a person facing you (2:47). That doesn't account for backwards lettering. People do not see you in real life the way you see your self in a mirror. A more accurate description would be to expand on his point of seeing the back of the front (2:20). If you took a slice from your front, copied it and moved it forward (from your point of view) 3 feet (with no change to orientation) you would see your reflection.
RF just means which way the person is facing, nothing more. The dominating effect of what we see in a mirror is that the person is looking toward us. So we imagine how a person would get to be facing us and normally that would be by turning round, rather than flipping front to back!
You understand how it works but I think you just misunderstood what he meant at that point.
Brilliant explanation. I had never heard it described like this before.
I listened to it again; you're right, I only half listened to what RF had said, apparently.
It is a hard thing to conceptualize but I figured it out when I was a kid with some clear Shrinky Dinks. It's much easier to understand with a 2D object and just taking two of them with the same orientation and pulling one away from the other. The first will see it's "reflection" in the second via (the second's) rear. So I reasoned a reflection is the "back of the front".
@chrisofnottingham Still, he doesn't quite get to the core of the matter. Yes, the "person" in the mirror appears to be a version of us that rotated about a vertical axis until facing us, rather than one that flipped about a horizontal axis, because that's how one would normally get into the apparent position of that "person"... but why is that? He doesn't say, though the reason is simple: Our bodies contain a left-to-right symmetry. That is the heart of the real answer.
@Bananadine I guess its understood that most objects, have enough symmetry (or are so random) that when we see a reversed version it is still recognisable as the non-reversed object.
For me the heart of the answer, apart from the fact that mirrors flip front to back, is that we define left/right in terms of the front/back of a person.
BTW, I'm not sure if "flipped about a horizontal axis" is a valid thing to say.
@chrisofnottingham If you had a giant lobster claw on only one arm, then you wouldn't be symmetrical left-to-right anymore, and your mirror image would no longer appear to be a turned-around version of you. It would appear to have been reversed from your normal image, but not in a way that privileged one axis over the other. If we were totally irregular, we could still define left and right as you say, but the effect that motivates the question would be gone. Our internal symmetry is the key.
@Bananadine I know what you mean but I think that even as a lobster, your first thought would be that the mirror swapped round the side your big claw was on.
If you look at a familiar landscape in a mirror, you think it is reversed left to right, not front to back.
Actually, I think the key is that we are used to rotating our view about a vertical axis as we move around, with up always being up. We could see our left hand in the mirror and say, "oh, the view is the wrong way up" but we don't.
@chrisofnottingham Well, yes, the unclawed parts of you would still be symmetrical l-to-r. It's hard to describe a person who's totally l-to-r-asymmetrical in 500 characters. And we do say the view is the wrong way up--except we call it left or right--when we're lying down and looking in the mirror. Would a l-to-r-symmetrical person with no devotion to "up"--say, uh, one raised in space? or an alien?--still see a l-to-r-switched person in the mirror? I think so, but it's hard to be sure.
@chrisofnottingham Good point about the landscape though. That is a different effect from what I'm thinking of. It doesn't rely on symmetry, although I think symmetry might help it sometimes.... If there's a convenience-of-symmetry effect AND a devotion-to-"up" effect, then it's tricky to separate and compare them in the case where the thing looked at is a human, because, again, humans always have both a pretty strong left-to-right symmetry and a strong sense of which way is "up".
@Bananadine I agree. Despite RF's description being correct, the 'psychological thing' he speaks of it still quite a puzzle in its own right. It seems to depend on our preference for seeing things rotated about a vertical axis and the fact that a left-right reversed person still basically looks like the same person.
@Andreazor "I still can't get my head around this. Is it our perception...?"
Kind of. The Mirror doesn't swap left with right. Your left hand in the mirror is still on _your_ left.
The mirror swaps front with back. Our problem is that we see someone looking at us from the mirror and we think that our left hand is on _his_ right, because he is looking at us like a normal person. But actually he is a person with his front and back swapped, not left and right
It's tragic we don't have people like Feynman around anymore. The job of making physics interesting for the general population is left in the hands of retarded dumbfucks like Michio Kaku, who does nothing but getting cocaine-high on the publicity of lies, ridiculous exaggerations and incoherent, self-contradicting technological fantasies, to the point of delusions of grandeur. If only someone in the field would speak out about this, the coming generation takes him seriously because of his Ph.D.
I agree... and personaly i'd want to invest my time on something that can be scientifically experimented...
when one understands the scale of the universe, and finds out that everything is working under simple and elegent laws, it's like a movie you have to watch it and enjoy it... because all that we are doing is trying to understand it... the laws of physics are for ever and unchanging... it just blows ur mind
cus in the beginning of the universe the first force to separate was gravity and the 3 other forces where combined in 1 force
u could say that as the universe cools down , more structure , complexity and diversity emerges ...like in a snowflake , in the beginning its a round drop , if it cools down it gets a structure
im curious however what happens when the universe will reach maximum entropy and reach zero temperature , the quantum fluctuation wound end
ok... i want you to do something... i want you to take a picture of the outside of your window... then hold it right beside you and look at the picture and then right back outside again... you see exactly the same thing... so the 'paper' is 2 dimensional ofcourse... but the image, which is a reflection of photons like you said is 3 dimensional... I also agree that 'mirror' is 2 dimensional... but the image that it gives is 3 dimensions
the only reason that I don't like to discuss such matters, is because it's one of those dopey philosiphical things that 'when you are eating food, do you see the food or do you see the light being reflected of it?' those who spend a lot of time on this question, die of hunger... mirror is a mirror and i enjoy fixing my hair in it... it's not a big matter which i'd like to spoil the fun to 'prove' something... please don't take it personally... wasn't intended that way
i know you weren't... i just used that as an example...
light is very weird and intresting at the same time... when a mirror is involved, all it's doing is reflecting back the light of a 3 dimensional object, so the essence is 3 dimensional being reflected by a 2 dimensional object... this could go on forever... the most important thing is that we can enjoy having mirrors and we can enjoy having understood the nature of light...
i find it interesting that the universe started as nothing more than a bunch of hydrogen and from that its produced complex chains of chemical reactions between molecules ...a little thing called life
and the best things is the universe has produced something that has a conciousness and the ability to understand what it really is and look back at itself , so in a way that hydrogen has come a long way :)
@ramtinking That's what bothers me though. We tend to think that a person can WONDER, or a person can DO, or a person can APPRECIATE. That each are somehow mutually exclusive. I very much believe this isn't necessarily so... maybe it only requires a mind that can endure doubt, be present in experience, and produce (appreciate? enjoy? endure?) some degree of consecutive thought. Looking at things differently needn't mean rejecting common experience...
how can an image be 3 dimensional? only 4 dimensional bodies can project 3 dimensional shadows .....
3 dimensional bodies project 2 d shadows or images ..
the image in the mirror is nothing more than photons bouncing off of it ....its a 2 dimensional projection of a 3 dimensional person ...but because the person is moving it gives u the illusion of 3d .
Well... the bouncing of photons is true not only for the mirror but for absolutely everything. We see things because photons bounce off of them. Therefore a mirror is nothing special in that sense.
The mirror is an 'object' which has 2 dimensions. But the image that's being projected of you in the mirror, is exactly what you would 'see' in a 3 dimensional world. therefore, a 3 dimensional image being projected from a 2 dimensional body. hope that helped.
Also, the fourth dimension doesn't exist in the everyday physical world. If you have studied math, I can tell you that the fourth dimension is kind of like a place holder, an imaginary number to get a better understanding of the universe at large. Just as it would be hard to imagine our world without the third dimension, it would be quite hard to imagine anything beyound us if we didn't use the fourth dimension.
thats cus u cant actually see it but general relativity also requires that additional dimensions exist cus otherwise the curvature caused by gravity couldnt be explained
and if we ever find gravitons they are predicted to move across several dimensions ..
Then I believe when you wake up in the morning and see yourself in the mirror... you see a flat parson and a flat room rather than seeing any of the depth in your face or body or the room around you... I'm sure you would see the room in the mirror exactly as you would see it with your own eyes. Mirror is nothing but a projection of reality, and reality being 3 dimensions.
the reality u and me experience has 3d + 1 dimension of time wich lately is considered spacial ....
but thats not the point ....its called a 2 dimensional image projected from a 3 d object ...
its like if u hold a piece if paper perpendicular on a table and a light source above it , the shadow of the paper is a 1d image if that paper where to have no width ..but paper does have a small width ..wich is why the line on table also has width ..
ironpirites, thanks. But i'm pretty sure that Feynman would be the first to argue against using a Nobel Prize as some kind of ad hominem credential that interferes with a question or a debate.
@shk9664 there is always a reason to respond to people when they ask a sincere question. there however is no reason to be as insufferably smug as you.
"How is this hard?" This kind of question shows the difficulty many people have with understanding science. The easy answer is, "that's just what mirrors do." But science aims to go deeper and not just state an observation, but explain it. The real answer, explained here in easier words, is that mirrors cause a parity change. The key is that there is a difference between "left/right" which are relative directions and N/S/E/W which are absolute directions.
Incidentally, I don't think that Feynman is inarticulate as some comments have suggested.
I believe it is simply that our generation has a diminished ability to follow long trains of thought. Probably due to a lack of deep-reading skills and, indeed, a diminished imagination.
Of course it doesn't help that the subjects Feynman often talks about are intrinsically rather abstract and confusing.
Feynman is describing the psychological tendency to think that mirrors "swap" images horizontally.
Imagine holding a ball in your *right* hand while looking at a mirror. Your brain sees a person who is holding a ball in her/his *left* hand. Since we are usually upright when looking into a mirror, we form the common fallacy that mirrors swap left and right. This is easily corrected if you look at a mirror while lying on your side.
A mirror does not swap an image horizontally, but front to back.
That's what people love or hate about physics, which is--the need for good visualization skills. To have been taught f2f by RF, that would have been a treat.
If we all did somersaults to change the direction we were facing, then it would seem strange that our mirror image isn't standing on its head. but we don't rotate on that axis normally; we're so used to rotating by spinning left/right that this question confuses us, but really there is nothing weird going on.
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
the guys retarded its simple. light is bounced by a mirror back to its source what you see is the front of you but from the back.
if you take the @ symbol and imagine it projected from behind your monitor and your viewing it from behind also, it will appear flipped that's essentially what's happening.
well I'm sorry but his exsplination was rubish and his methods were poor. any highschool graduate with common sense would understand why (although i do tend to underestimate the level of stupidity in this world) inferring I'm a "retard" when i fully understand the concepts presented without having to lie on my side and disregarding how photons work is plain stupid.
What's really funny is that you don't realize that Feynman won the nobel prize for his work on Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) - THE theory of how photons work (and more). Go read his book, then come back.
oh god when he asked left right vs up down my brain hurt
eahazell 1 month ago
Chameleon + mirror = ???
CarlosCMTF 1 month ago
i figured this one out when i was about 10 years old. this guy is awesome
bscutajar 3 months ago
13 disgruntled mirrors disliked this video for having their secrets revealed.
Metalliss 3 months ago 4
13 dislikes.......wow.
pant1979 3 months ago
this man must have born brain first then body parts attached on to it later on, wow
TurkiyeCumhurbaskani 3 months ago 2
waldsworths constant does not fucking apply
11karg 3 months ago 6
I already love this guy.
sebc2s 3 months ago
he must be he doc from back the future
pepekia 3 months ago
This is a pretty use one. As soon as you realize that its not necessary for the image in the mirror to have the same left or right as you (because its two dimensional), the answer becomes obvious.
WSWarthog 4 months ago
This guy looks like a mix between Irvin Kirshner and Dylan Moran
rubbermuck 4 months ago
at the end of the video:
"well that's kind of an easy one...."
No... No Richard, not really you over-intelligent bastard! I had to twist my brain until it screamed just to grasp the dynamics of the problem even as you were explaining the solution for said problem >_<
Even from the grave he makes us all look boring and stupid by comparison ;)
TheStigma 5 months ago 4
This comment has received too many negative votes show
i found this pretty boring to be honest, i think my mind naturally understands the essence of mirrors
Garcian 5 months ago
@Garcian we're all lucky he didnt devote his life trying to entertain just you then :-)
JPT315 5 months ago
I've got a question. If you put two mirrors opposite to each other. What would they reflect directly at each other ?
sawmassacre13 5 months ago 16
@sawmassacre13 The same thing that happens when you think about your thoughts, or when a video camera is pointed in the direction of it's own display.
TwistedLemniscate 5 months ago
@sawmassacre13 what you are thinking is impossible, first of all, it will be impossible to align them perfeclty so that light will get stuck between them, the slightes bit will make light bounce in another direction and second.. the mirror is not perfect it has bumps (smaller bumps that ordinary things but bumps none the less) and that will make light bounce in another direction too
rubentg1 5 months ago
@rubentg1 It's a brain teaser (Paradox) ,........I don't think that the problem would be with the alignment or calibration but actually the problem would be seeing the image..... Imagine two 50ft mirrors facing each other about 5ft apart, one of which is an Two-way mirror....You're behind the Two-way mirror and the only light comes from the top where's the space between the mirrors,.. What do you think you would see ? I never done this so I don't know........
sawmassacre13 5 months ago
@sawmassacre13 light ofc, and if there is no light then nothing
hawsSy 1 month ago
@sawmassacre13 yes light hawssy says they will reflect light and if they dont get light it will just turn black... i really love the new youtube btw
maskenmakkan 1 month ago
@sawmassacre13 exactly the same they would if they where side by side.
a mirror doesn't reflect certain things, it reflects everything we just don't see everything a mirror reflects(like you can't see everything that's on the other side of a window).
Trisscarro 1 month ago
@sawmassacre13 The light would just keep bouncing back and forth. So light could come in from the side maybe, and it would keep bouncing back and forth until it missed one of the mirrors.
Extension of the idea - since it just keeps going back and forth, what if you kept adding more light, so there was more and more light bouncing around in between them? I guess it would get really bright in there! You could make it easier by using curved mirrors.
DoctorFastest 1 month ago
@DoctorFastest it's an interesting question... mabey you have one hole in a mirror that has a flashlight in it. If the light just keeps bouncing back and forth then eventually you'd have an infinite energy density. If course, the problem woud be if you ever tried to do this is that variance in the parallel-ness of the mirrors woils soon send a light ray off the edge, unless you had infinite-sized mirrors - in which case you'd have zero energy density.
rhcquant 5 days ago
@rhcquant Thanks for the response! To solve the problem of the light escaping, you can use mirrors that are slightly curved, like this. ( )
Pretty cool. And it turns out, this is actually how lasers work! Between the mirrors is material called a 'gain medium', a gas that emits extra light when light shines on it. So you shine some light between the mirrors (just like your idea!), it bounces back and forth, the gain medium releases even more light which also bounces back and forth, ...
DoctorFastest 5 days ago
@rhcquant ...and then boom, laser!
Haha, in other words you let some of the light out through a hole in one of the mirrors, and a beam of intense light can escape. As long as the 'stimulated emission' from the gain medium (the extra light that the gas between the mirrors is emitting) exceeds the amount of light which you're shooting out, you can sustain the beam.
DoctorFastest 5 days ago
@sawmassacre13 I think it depends on their distance.
sinachiniforoosh 1 month ago
@sinachiniforoosh ...My question itself is flawed. It's like questioning how old is god, supposing that god created time, the question would just not apply. Mirrors reflect image of light that bounces off of objects. If there are no objects and no light, than there's nothing to reflect. But again, ''nothing'' is hard to imagine as we are used to the idea of something always being somewhere. I mean what if we could see what the mirrors ''see'' when they face each other closely ?
sawmassacre13 1 month ago
@sawmassacre13 i wanna know!!! and dont say infinite mirror frames, i wanna know what the middle would reflect!
preecejon 1 week ago
he sounds just like robert de niro :D
55tyy55 6 months ago
that's a great question to troll with... i'm going to have fun with this :D
Klayperson 6 months ago
"what keeps a train on the track?" *video ends* FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Imnon1 8 months ago 5
@Imnon1 watch part 7 silly :)
xjaskix 8 months ago
lol i dont get this one
xjaskix 8 months ago
his enthusiasm is contagious,
would've loved to have him as a mentor.
CioranD 8 months ago 3
REDDIT.COM FTW
Dark3x 8 months ago 2
Top & bottom are determined by an objective frame of reference with respect to earth's gravitional field.
Left and right are relative to the observer.
PikPobedy 8 months ago
@PikPobedy "Left and right are relative to the observer."
True, but when you point to your left your mirror image also points to your left. Left and right have not been reversed either.
The mistake is in treating the mirror image as a person and defining left/right with respect to that imaginary person.
In fact the image in the mirror has actually been reversed front-to-back, something that can't happen to a real person. If it did, we would have to redefine what we mean by left and right.
chrisofnottingham 8 months ago
@PikPobedy : That's right, but it doesn't explain why, if you were to lie down in front of the mirror, up and down (relative to you) are still okay, while left and right are still reversed. Feynman's explanation, on the other hand, actually addresses the problem.
TheNewCrankyWorkshop 7 months ago
@TheNewCrankyWorkshop
Top & bottom in that case are defined by head and feet respectively. It is all about semantics. Left and right are relative to a point of view. This is why boats and planes do not refer to left and right but rather to port and starboard. Port, starboard, stern and bow are all relative to the ship and there is no "Do you mean my left or your left?" paradoxes to resolve.
PikPobedy 7 months ago
@PikPobedy
Top being the head, bottom being the feet. What I said was precisely what Richard states.
PikPobedy 7 months ago
I can't tell if he's troll physics-ing me or what.
Akatu98 9 months ago
But there's another freaky way: if you have another dimension to go (4D), you can simply jump OUT OF the 3D space, ROTATE there in the 4th dimension and jump again into the 3rd dimension you're familiar with. And then you'll be your mirror image! You'll see that all the world reversed its left and right. All your neighbors would have heart in the right side of their chest (from your perspective; from theirs it'll be you who has the heart on the wrong side!). Freaky isn't it?
Saskachewan 9 months ago
The same is true for the 3D space we think we live: no matter how you slide or turn in the space, you can't turn yourself into your mirror image. Your heart will still be on the left side of your chest, and your right hand will still be right. To turn yourself into your mirror image, you'd have to turn yourself inside-out, as Feynman says.
Saskachewan 9 months ago
So I have a more freaky thing for you:
When you have some unequal-sided triangle on top of the table, and number its vertices, then no matter how will you slide id and turn on the table, you'll never get its mirror image version. To do it, you must do what Feynman says: kind of "turn the triangle inside out".
But if you have another dimension to your disposition (space), you can just grab the triangle off the table, ROTATE IT in the air and put on the table again, and THEN it'll be mirrored!
Saskachewan 9 months ago
imagine an x,y coordinate plane. Rotating it 180 degrees would flip both the x and y axes. Because we do not see a Y rotation, this isn't what is happening in a mirror. Rather, if you only flip the Z axis, its like looking at that coordinate plane from behind. When you do that, you now see positive x values as negative and vice versa, with out the y values being changed.
Teekles 9 months ago
Oh man i can write and read english but it's a lot more dificult to understand a person when is speaking, well i would love to be like him some day =D
sachoslks 10 months ago 3
If you're puzzled try this:
Line up two mirrors- so that one is behind you and one is in front of you
You should be able to see the mirror behind you in the mirror in front
now wave your left hand if you look in you should see that in the mirror behind u, u r still waving your left hand NOT YOUR RIGHT. This is because its not left and right thats mixed up!
pls tell me if you are still confused
(after reading this replay the video- if u understand this u can understand wht he said!)
OnTheHead12 10 months ago
he's like patch adams in a scientific way :)
montrey666666 11 months ago 2
Oh I understand! .. look in a mirror, take a pen and put a spot on your face, or if you have beauty spot or mole etc.. .. put a dot on the mirror.. it's easy it's right opposite it. Now imagine or actually do it... spin your head around so the back of your head is facing the mirror .. now think where the spot on your face is and the spot on the mirror. They're facing the same way, but on opposite sides. Maybe I'm dumb. Sorry if it's like the most blatant thing ever.
sportsportsport 1 year ago 2
I'm looking at a mirror, but I'm perplexed about his explanation. Maybe it's because i'm probably -100,000 IQ compared to him.
sportsportsport 1 year ago
The reason why the mirror image appears to be swappend left to right is due to our eyes being on bifocal on the horizontal plane or not?
bicnarok 1 year ago
@bicnarok No it has nothing to do with our eyes being on the horizontal plane; it has to do with us seeing a person reflected inside-out back-to-front (away or towards to the plane of the mirror) and our brain going "oh, that look like a normal person who has turned around to face behind him". Because we are used to seeing people spin around, but have never seen someone morph their face out the back of their head, we subconsciously decide that they spun, thus have their left on our right, etc.
christhatguy22 1 year ago
@christhatguy22 err that explanation makes little sense. How can our brain project our own face on an inside out version of ourselves, not only that but if there´s someone or something standing next to you, it is also reflected on the horizontal plane.
bicnarok 1 year ago
listening to mr feynman's beautiful words (sometimes wondering what they might actually mean) i realize i'm dumber than a bag of spanners.
poysian67 1 year ago
is the surface of a mirror technically invisable?
robertwc82 1 year ago
I could listen to Feynman all my life and never get tired. He is such a down to earth guy and a great character. A great scientist and a great human being. I miss him alot.
realbrush 1 year ago 33
awesome way of thinking about it.
equallyeasilyfuqyou 1 year ago
its only on the left side of yourself,because you are facing yourself in the mirror.
green66vw 1 year ago
What keeps a train on a track?!?! We'll never know!
Kowzorz 1 year ago
@Kowzorz Fuckin' magnets ... how do they work?
Superphilipp 1 year ago
@Superphilipp and why do they never run out?
bicnarok 1 year ago
i figured that out in 2 seconds, and I've known it since I was like 8, it's not that hard to figure out
iunnox666 1 year ago
I cannot begin to fathom why it is that some people are so negative. Why would you give a 'thumbs down' for an interview as great as this? Why!?
AmorCG 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
For anyone who reads this, if you are totally confused by mirrors, please don't have children.
Thanks.
teddybeardustin 1 year ago
@lcr1234 Not really. Unless the other person parts his hair on the opposite side of yours and belts his trosers the opposite way, also!
rpgtutubo 1 year ago
THIS MAN IS A GENIUS!
YellowBricks1234 1 year ago
Comment removed
jimmyti9cer 1 year ago
I think that his explanations are kinda... weird, per se. Its like making a very young kid understand physics. At a certain point when I am imagining mirrors in terms of light waves and densities, it becomes harder and harder to understand his explanations.
projectcedric 1 year ago
Looking in a mirror is really looking into another Universe where you are doing the exact same things. So you will find yourself, from a different universe, staring back at you... however in the other universe the front is back. This is my theory on mirrors.
kiemul136 1 year ago
It's actually relatively simple, something I've pondered a lot on, though a bit long to explain in a Youtube comment, so I'll just say this: Figure out why looking into the concave side of a spoon flips the image vertically, and it should be pretty easy to ascertain why a mirror does what it does. It's a matter of the DISTANCE that each individual light wave travels, and the angles at which they individually reflect off the mirror.
conquistadoor 1 year ago
now what im thinking is, what exactly is the image we see in the mirror, what is it how does it get there what's it made of??
now to my mind I can only describe it as all different types of light bouncing or coming from our bodies then hitting the mirror bouncing off then returning to our eyes in perpetual motion which continues as long as you stand in front of the mirror.
but the beauty of it is I could be completely wrong, I'm not Richard Feynman Im not a genius.
atourdeforce 1 year ago
@atourdeforce Close, The photons that hit you loose all or mort of their energy,
If a surface was perfectly reflective, Maybe that would work.
Vennificus 1 year ago
This is a clear example of the benefits to not really looking at things in just a different way, but rather, in the proper way.
teddybeardustin 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
It does make me lol......this guy thinks in 10 dimensions opposed to most of us, including myself that only just manage 3D..........but some here having trouble with 1D. Watch the video again and try and understand........he is not tying to tell you how a mirror works.
I so wish I had of had a teacher like him........amazing mind
Redpilldown 1 year ago
It does make me lol......this guy thinks in 10 dimensions opposed to most of us, including myself that only just manage 3D..........but some here having trouble with 1D. Watch the video again and try and understand........he is not tying to tell you how a mirror works.
I so wish I had of had a teacher like him........amazing mind
Redpilldown 1 year ago
lmao
cripysmoka 1 year ago
Thanks for Uploading Fenynam Chris, you done a lot of work with him over the years, and watching him both as a fellow human and as an Engineer I know why.
royalecraig 1 year ago
this is so wrong.
Its all based on light refraction and reflection
this switcheroo shit is stupid but hey its like the 70s so whateva
EvTrev11 1 year ago
@EvTrev11 He's not explaining how it happens so much as why the image looks the way it does to us. I'm pretty sure Richard Feynman knew that mirrors reflect light.
SpartaNate 1 year ago 2
@EvTrev11 Sorry, but you didnt understand anything at all...
dietermauer 1 year ago
completely stupid...
up'still up.... right's still right... nothing change.
Bazuzeus 1 year ago
that was cool
pendejadafcc 1 year ago
Like... is that the coolest thing he learned at MIT? It's silly.
kamratframjandet 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
I have NEVER understood why people are having a problem with this, I have never thought that left and right is switched in a mirror, because it's not. If I move my left hand, my left hand in the mirror (which is on the same side as my left hand) moves, simple.
And what keeps a train on the rails: its wheels and its weight. Not very entertaining or difficult to figure out at all. The inner part of the wheel goes down on the inner side of the rail on each side to keep it in place. Stupidity.
kamratframjandet 1 year ago
I have NEVER understood why people are having a problem with this, I have never thought that left and right is switched in a mirror, because it's not. If I move my left hand, my left hand in the mirror (which is on the same side as my left hand) moves, simple.
And what keeps a train on the rails: its wheels and its weight. Not very entertaining or difficult to figure out at all. The inner part of the wheel goes down on the inner side of the rail on each side to keep it in place. Stupidity.
kamratframjandet 1 year ago
What?? He doesn't even explain it!?! Just tells us what a mirror does? Didn't we already know that?
lameshmame 1 year ago
this guy is great i could listen to him all day
Greig1424 1 year ago 196
@Greig1424 me too. A true genius!
TobiasGrable 1 year ago
@Greig1424 me too.
fabianidhesona 11 months ago
@Greig1424 haha i DO listen to him all day
samsonisdope 9 months ago
I remember even as a kid understanding that the mirror doesnt flip things left and right, it just reflected the image exactly as it was right back at you. All you have to do is touch the mirror and you will figure it out.
UnrivaledShogun 1 year ago
he looks like he's going to bust out laughing at any second.
thejordan01 1 year ago 197
Well he is happy man after all, i have this observation that i have come to an conclusion that scientist are really happy people
TheImmigrantsong 1 year ago 3
@thejordan01 that comment just made me burst out laughing
aeropostalbaby1 10 months ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
He could have saved time by simply saying that its not the "x" or "y" axis that is flipped, but rather the "z" axis and this video would have by 30 seconds... but not as entertaining I guess.
UnrivaledShogun 1 year ago
Well Richard wanted to explain it so even children could udnerstand it, thats what he wanted, not to turn science in some borring equesions but rather to make the reality more interesting
TheImmigrantsong 1 year ago 3
He was right until he said the bit about the reflection being like a person facing you (2:47). That doesn't account for backwards lettering. People do not see you in real life the way you see your self in a mirror. A more accurate description would be to expand on his point of seeing the back of the front (2:20). If you took a slice from your front, copied it and moved it forward (from your point of view) 3 feet (with no change to orientation) you would see your reflection.
progers20 2 years ago
"He was right until ...like a person facing you."
RF just means which way the person is facing, nothing more. The dominating effect of what we see in a mirror is that the person is looking toward us. So we imagine how a person would get to be facing us and normally that would be by turning round, rather than flipping front to back!
You understand how it works but I think you just misunderstood what he meant at that point.
Brilliant explanation. I had never heard it described like this before.
chrisofnottingham 1 year ago
I listened to it again; you're right, I only half listened to what RF had said, apparently.
It is a hard thing to conceptualize but I figured it out when I was a kid with some clear Shrinky Dinks. It's much easier to understand with a 2D object and just taking two of them with the same orientation and pulling one away from the other. The first will see it's "reflection" in the second via (the second's) rear. So I reasoned a reflection is the "back of the front".
progers20 1 year ago
@chrisofnottingham Still, he doesn't quite get to the core of the matter. Yes, the "person" in the mirror appears to be a version of us that rotated about a vertical axis until facing us, rather than one that flipped about a horizontal axis, because that's how one would normally get into the apparent position of that "person"... but why is that? He doesn't say, though the reason is simple: Our bodies contain a left-to-right symmetry. That is the heart of the real answer.
Bananadine 1 year ago
@Bananadine I guess its understood that most objects, have enough symmetry (or are so random) that when we see a reversed version it is still recognisable as the non-reversed object.
For me the heart of the answer, apart from the fact that mirrors flip front to back, is that we define left/right in terms of the front/back of a person.
BTW, I'm not sure if "flipped about a horizontal axis" is a valid thing to say.
chrisofnottingham 1 year ago
@chrisofnottingham If you had a giant lobster claw on only one arm, then you wouldn't be symmetrical left-to-right anymore, and your mirror image would no longer appear to be a turned-around version of you. It would appear to have been reversed from your normal image, but not in a way that privileged one axis over the other. If we were totally irregular, we could still define left and right as you say, but the effect that motivates the question would be gone. Our internal symmetry is the key.
Bananadine 1 year ago
@Bananadine I know what you mean but I think that even as a lobster, your first thought would be that the mirror swapped round the side your big claw was on.
If you look at a familiar landscape in a mirror, you think it is reversed left to right, not front to back.
Actually, I think the key is that we are used to rotating our view about a vertical axis as we move around, with up always being up. We could see our left hand in the mirror and say, "oh, the view is the wrong way up" but we don't.
chrisofnottingham 1 year ago
@chrisofnottingham Well, yes, the unclawed parts of you would still be symmetrical l-to-r. It's hard to describe a person who's totally l-to-r-asymmetrical in 500 characters. And we do say the view is the wrong way up--except we call it left or right--when we're lying down and looking in the mirror. Would a l-to-r-symmetrical person with no devotion to "up"--say, uh, one raised in space? or an alien?--still see a l-to-r-switched person in the mirror? I think so, but it's hard to be sure.
Bananadine 1 year ago
@chrisofnottingham Good point about the landscape though. That is a different effect from what I'm thinking of. It doesn't rely on symmetry, although I think symmetry might help it sometimes.... If there's a convenience-of-symmetry effect AND a devotion-to-"up" effect, then it's tricky to separate and compare them in the case where the thing looked at is a human, because, again, humans always have both a pretty strong left-to-right symmetry and a strong sense of which way is "up".
Bananadine 1 year ago
@Bananadine I agree. Despite RF's description being correct, the 'psychological thing' he speaks of it still quite a puzzle in its own right. It seems to depend on our preference for seeing things rotated about a vertical axis and the fact that a left-right reversed person still basically looks like the same person.
chrisofnottingham 1 year ago 2
@chrisofnottingham
I still can't get my head around this. Is it our perception that makes a mirrors image opposite?
Andreazor 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Andreazor "I still can't get my head around this. Is it our perception...?"
Kind of. The Mirror doesn't swap left with right. Your left hand in the mirror is still on _your_ left.
The mirror swaps front with back. Our problem is that we see someone looking at us from the mirror and we think that our left hand is on _his_ right, because he is looking at us like a normal person. But actually he is a person with his front and back swapped, not left and right
chrisofnottingham 1 year ago
@Andreazor .. no it's light reflecting exactly in the place of where it is entering. which is the MIRROR copy of what actually is..
daguy069 1 year ago
I love this.
sfurner 2 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
It's tragic we don't have people like Feynman around anymore. The job of making physics interesting for the general population is left in the hands of retarded dumbfucks like Michio Kaku, who does nothing but getting cocaine-high on the publicity of lies, ridiculous exaggerations and incoherent, self-contradicting technological fantasies, to the point of delusions of grandeur. If only someone in the field would speak out about this, the coming generation takes him seriously because of his Ph.D.
enHanzable 2 years ago
since the big bang was just a quantum fluctuation
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
the fact that all the beauty of life all happened by chance is way more pretty that the idea of intelligent design could ever be.
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
I agree... and personaly i'd want to invest my time on something that can be scientifically experimented...
when one understands the scale of the universe, and finds out that everything is working under simple and elegent laws, it's like a movie you have to watch it and enjoy it... because all that we are doing is trying to understand it... the laws of physics are for ever and unchanging... it just blows ur mind
ramtinking 2 years ago
im not sure they are unchanging ..
cus in the beginning of the universe the first force to separate was gravity and the 3 other forces where combined in 1 force
u could say that as the universe cools down , more structure , complexity and diversity emerges ...like in a snowflake , in the beginning its a round drop , if it cools down it gets a structure
im curious however what happens when the universe will reach maximum entropy and reach zero temperature , the quantum fluctuation wound end
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
now if that itself isnt beautiful
i dont see how some story about god could ever top that.
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
in fact the very concept of an "image" means it is 2 dimensional by nature ...
images are 2 dimensional , lines are 1 dimensional, points are 0 dimensional
and 4d object shouldnt even be called object ....
but thats wasnt the point ..the point is u cant say an image is 3 dimensional ..
holograms are 3 dimensional ...
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
i'm a physics student... i personally don't believe that this conversation is going to be worth anything when it's over... so sure you are right
ramtinking 2 years ago
i dont care if your a physics student ur saying an image can be 3 dimensional .....
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
well i know what i know... and quite frankly i'm not too eager to prove anything to you... so let's just leave it at that
ramtinking 2 years ago
well thats not very sporty ? u just give up on a debate like that?
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
ok... i want you to do something... i want you to take a picture of the outside of your window... then hold it right beside you and look at the picture and then right back outside again... you see exactly the same thing... so the 'paper' is 2 dimensional ofcourse... but the image, which is a reflection of photons like you said is 3 dimensional... I also agree that 'mirror' is 2 dimensional... but the image that it gives is 3 dimensions
ramtinking 2 years ago
the only reason that I don't like to discuss such matters, is because it's one of those dopey philosiphical things that 'when you are eating food, do you see the food or do you see the light being reflected of it?' those who spend a lot of time on this question, die of hunger... mirror is a mirror and i enjoy fixing my hair in it... it's not a big matter which i'd like to spoil the fun to 'prove' something... please don't take it personally... wasn't intended that way
ramtinking 2 years ago
well i wasnt referring to philosophy at all ..
and yes the whole light question is funny cus seeing implies that light is hitting your eye anyway :))
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
i know you weren't... i just used that as an example...
light is very weird and intresting at the same time... when a mirror is involved, all it's doing is reflecting back the light of a 3 dimensional object, so the essence is 3 dimensional being reflected by a 2 dimensional object... this could go on forever... the most important thing is that we can enjoy having mirrors and we can enjoy having understood the nature of light...
ramtinking 2 years ago
yes i agree
i find it interesting that the universe started as nothing more than a bunch of hydrogen and from that its produced complex chains of chemical reactions between molecules ...a little thing called life
and the best things is the universe has produced something that has a conciousness and the ability to understand what it really is and look back at itself , so in a way that hydrogen has come a long way :)
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
@ramtinking That's what bothers me though. We tend to think that a person can WONDER, or a person can DO, or a person can APPRECIATE. That each are somehow mutually exclusive. I very much believe this isn't necessarily so... maybe it only requires a mind that can endure doubt, be present in experience, and produce (appreciate? enjoy? endure?) some degree of consecutive thought. Looking at things differently needn't mean rejecting common experience...
KnowKnot 2 years ago
spoons
darkknightbob101 2 years ago
The things this man can think about, amazes me!
A true inspiration!
Swamoez0rs 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Yeah not shit. That's just obvious, no major revelation here.
DimmuB 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
how can the nose be pointing south if the mirror is 2-dimensional. Don't you need a 3rd dimension for that?
GreenTeaGarlic 2 years ago
He means how it appears.
PierreZeFrenchButler 2 years ago
Comment removed
ramtinking 2 years ago
the mirror itself is 2 dimentional, but the image is 3 dimentional
ramtinking 2 years ago
how can an image be 3 dimensional? only 4 dimensional bodies can project 3 dimensional shadows .....
3 dimensional bodies project 2 d shadows or images ..
the image in the mirror is nothing more than photons bouncing off of it ....its a 2 dimensional projection of a 3 dimensional person ...but because the person is moving it gives u the illusion of 3d .
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
Well... the bouncing of photons is true not only for the mirror but for absolutely everything. We see things because photons bounce off of them. Therefore a mirror is nothing special in that sense.
The mirror is an 'object' which has 2 dimensions. But the image that's being projected of you in the mirror, is exactly what you would 'see' in a 3 dimensional world. therefore, a 3 dimensional image being projected from a 2 dimensional body. hope that helped.
ramtinking 2 years ago
Also, the fourth dimension doesn't exist in the everyday physical world. If you have studied math, I can tell you that the fourth dimension is kind of like a place holder, an imaginary number to get a better understanding of the universe at large. Just as it would be hard to imagine our world without the third dimension, it would be quite hard to imagine anything beyound us if we didn't use the fourth dimension.
ramtinking 2 years ago
thats cus u cant actually see it but general relativity also requires that additional dimensions exist cus otherwise the curvature caused by gravity couldnt be explained
and if we ever find gravitons they are predicted to move across several dimensions ..
string also used 10-11 dimensions...
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
and that still doesnt change the fact that an image on the mirror is 2 dimensional ..
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
Then I believe when you wake up in the morning and see yourself in the mirror... you see a flat parson and a flat room rather than seeing any of the depth in your face or body or the room around you... I'm sure you would see the room in the mirror exactly as you would see it with your own eyes. Mirror is nothing but a projection of reality, and reality being 3 dimensions.
ramtinking 2 years ago
dude , the image is flat ...that fact that u are moving means it "refreshes"
its like saying the monitor u are looking at now is showing a 3d image of feynman ...it shows a 2d image that keeps refreshing ..
the image itself doesnt really exist ..its just a series of photons emitted by the damn monitor ....
an image cant be 3 dimensional cus an image is just a concept itself ...its nothing more than the reflection of light in a mirror ...
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
reality has more then 3 dimensions ..
the reality u and me experience has 3d + 1 dimension of time wich lately is considered spacial ....
but thats not the point ....its called a 2 dimensional image projected from a 3 d object ...
its like if u hold a piece if paper perpendicular on a table and a light source above it , the shadow of the paper is a 1d image if that paper where to have no width ..but paper does have a small width ..wich is why the line on table also has width ..
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
Not bad. Feynmann is still (in all probability) one Nobel Prize ahead of you, though.
ironpirites 2 years ago
ironpirites, thanks. But i'm pretty sure that Feynman would be the first to argue against using a Nobel Prize as some kind of ad hominem credential that interferes with a question or a debate.
GreenTeaGarlic 2 years ago 2
This has been flagged as spam show
Does anyone actually get confused by such a simple question?
tganubis 2 years ago
Theres no reason to reply to stupid comments, There is no reason to waste your efforts on stupidity.
shk9664 2 years ago
@shk9664 there is always a reason to respond to people when they ask a sincere question. there however is no reason to be as insufferably smug as you.
9ofpentacles 2 years ago 3
I guess i do lack reason. Thank you
shk9664 2 years ago
this guy is a hero
JadoreLeQunt 2 years ago 3
So then we confuse it?
Wasn't there a time when mirrors were concidered magical?
BlueRoseRocketBand2 2 years ago
Comment removed
bouncerhiphop 2 years ago
its confusing
nintendodude1000 2 years ago
OMG now I will never know about train tracks
paraponzi 2 years ago 6
umm try having a look at part 7 in the related videos, you wally...
anchorbuildings 2 years ago
@swickotine
Stupid idiot. You have no idea who this man was?!
Herbststurm1985 2 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
I wanna punch this guy right in the mouth.
swickotine 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
wow, You sir, are and idiot
emceha 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
How is this hard?
darthsheep 2 years ago
"How is this hard?" This kind of question shows the difficulty many people have with understanding science. The easy answer is, "that's just what mirrors do." But science aims to go deeper and not just state an observation, but explain it. The real answer, explained here in easier words, is that mirrors cause a parity change. The key is that there is a difference between "left/right" which are relative directions and N/S/E/W which are absolute directions.
orobouros616 2 years ago 8
Incidentally, I don't think that Feynman is inarticulate as some comments have suggested.
I believe it is simply that our generation has a diminished ability to follow long trains of thought. Probably due to a lack of deep-reading skills and, indeed, a diminished imagination.
Of course it doesn't help that the subjects Feynman often talks about are intrinsically rather abstract and confusing.
(Which is why he tends to talk about them :D)
brianpeiris 2 years ago 5
Feynman is describing the psychological tendency to think that mirrors "swap" images horizontally.
Imagine holding a ball in your *right* hand while looking at a mirror. Your brain sees a person who is holding a ball in her/his *left* hand. Since we are usually upright when looking into a mirror, we form the common fallacy that mirrors swap left and right. This is easily corrected if you look at a mirror while lying on your side.
A mirror does not swap an image horizontally, but front to back.
brianpeiris 2 years ago 3
This comment has received too many negative votes show
da fuk
1prettyricky 2 years ago
I don't understand how that's supposed to be a stumper, especially for MIT students.
BlueOceanBelow 2 years ago
That's what people love or hate about physics, which is--the need for good visualization skills. To have been taught f2f by RF, that would have been a treat.
biathcw 2 years ago
If we all did somersaults to change the direction we were facing, then it would seem strange that our mirror image isn't standing on its head. but we don't rotate on that axis normally; we're so used to rotating by spinning left/right that this question confuses us, but really there is nothing weird going on.
j01tz0r 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I don't get it. Can someone explain this better? He's not a very good teacher, even if he is brilliant.
flixmaster200 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
the guys retarded its simple. light is bounced by a mirror back to its source what you see is the front of you but from the back.
if you take the @ symbol and imagine it projected from behind your monitor and your viewing it from behind also, it will appear flipped that's essentially what's happening.
xxAkatsukixSasorixx 2 years ago
The guy won the nobel prize in physics. His own peers regularly recognized him as probably being one of the smartest guys on the planet.
"Retard" is not the word I'd choose to use to refer to him. You, however...
mike020363 2 years ago 75
This has been flagged as spam show
well I'm sorry but his exsplination was rubish and his methods were poor. any highschool graduate with common sense would understand why (although i do tend to underestimate the level of stupidity in this world) inferring I'm a "retard" when i fully understand the concepts presented without having to lie on my side and disregarding how photons work is plain stupid.
xxAkatsukixSasorixx 2 years ago
What's really funny is that you don't realize that Feynman won the nobel prize for his work on Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) - THE theory of how photons work (and more). Go read his book, then come back.
mike020363 2 years ago 21
how is that funny?
blursst 2 years ago
I think he explained it very well.
BTW - explanation (not exsplination).
em1ly 2 years ago