Question

The side view mirror in a car is a convex mirror. The radius of curvature of the mirror is 6 m. The car is 18m behind you. What is the height of a 1.5 m high vehicle would appear to you when you see its image on the mirror? Draw a ray diagram to show the image formation.

Answer 1

Given information:

Here, R is curvature’s radius of the convex mirror, u is the object distance and h_o is the object’s (vehicle) height.

The standard sign convention is used.

Consider the diagram below.

Write the radius of curvature (R) and focal length (f) relation and plug the required values to determine the focal length.

Write the mirror formula and plug the required values to determine the image’s distance (v).

Use the magnification formula and plug the required values to determine the image’s height (h_i).