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Re: Help: rear view mirror optics (fwd)



In my heart of hearts I always thought that these mirrors have a
silvered surface at the back so that the reflection is really very good.
At night to avoid the glare from bright lights the silvered surface is
moved away from the mirror to cut down the intensity of the reflection.

Maybe I should go by a junkyard and get a scrapped rear view mirror and
take it apart to see how it works. Sometimes the empirical approach is
best.

Barlow Newbolt
Dan.MacIsaac@NAU.EDU 04/09/02 20:01 PM >>>
...I frequently get odd requests from web-surfers who stumble across
PHYS-L
and its archives. Yesterday I got a request from a surfer who was
looking for
a nice explanation of the optics of a standard rear-view automobile
mirror,
which when tilted significantly dims the reflected image.

I think I know how the mirror works; I THINK it's a glass wedge and by
controlling the incident angles one can reflect light multiple times
within the wedge, attenuating it. I could easily be very wrong. But I
can't
find a simple explanation of the design on the web anywheres. Can
anyone
help steer me to an appropriate online explanation?

Thanks in advance,

Dan M

Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Northern AZ
Univ
danmac@nau.edu http://purcell.phy.nau.edu PHYS-L list
owner