Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!rochester!cornell!batcomputer!smythe
From: smythe@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Bradford Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: quick question
Message-ID: <3508@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: 28 Jan 88 01:45:22 GMT
References: <1170@petsd.UUCP> <73600006@uiucdcsp> <6730@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: smythe@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Bradford Smith)
Distribution: na
Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY
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As has been observed, a mirror reverse FRONT/BACK, not left right as it
appears.  The reason for the confustion is that in everyday life, left
and right are defined in terms of front and back and top and bottom are not.
Therefore, reversing front/back will reverse left/right but not top/bottom.

The reason text is always reverse is because in order to read it, you must
look at the "front" of the letters, not the back, which is what is seen when
text is seen in a mirror.

The way I visualise mirror reversal is to picture seeing the FRONT of the 
object as if I were looking at it from the back.  This is what a mirror does.
It is difficult to visualise (even more difficult to describe) because one
expects the rest of the three dimensional body to be in the way.  It is not
in a mirrir because a mirror is 2-D.

So, to understand why left/right are reversed, all that need be done is to
picture the object as two dimensional and look at it from the other side.
No probelm. :-)

					-Bradford