Experiment 111: Spherical Mirrors

Analysis

Light is an electromagnetic wave that can be seen by humans. It can

be considered as waves or as particles. To distinguish the two personalities

of light, light can be considered as wave if it has a property like reflection,

refraction, interference and diffraction, while light can be considered as a

particle if it shows some properties of a particle. In this experiment, light is

considered as waves. Reflection, a property of wave, is described as the

bouncing of waves when it hits a barrier. As shown in figure 1, an example

of a reflection.

Now in Physics, there also

terms such as ‘mirrors. These

objects are where light can be

reflected and reconvened to

form images. Two different

types of mirror are concave and

convex mirror with different Figure 1. Reflection of Mountain Alps

properties. Two types of image
formed by mirrors are real image and virtual image. A real image is formed

when the light reconvenes and always inverted. A virtual image is formed

when the light goes through and does not reconvene and is always erect.

There are three types of mirrors namely, Plain, Concave and Convex,

respectively. First, a plain mirror refers to a mirror with a planar reflective

surface. A flat mirror reflects light rays in the same order as they approach

the mirror. For the Plain Mirror, the light reflected according to the Law of

Reflection When a light ray is incident upon a reflecting surface, the angle

of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence. Both angles are measured

relative to a normal drawn to the surface. The incident ray, the reflected

ray, and the normal all lie in the same plane. Second, concave mirrors

reflect light inward to one focal point, therefore they are used to focus light.

Unlike convex mirrors, concave mirrors show different types of image

depending on the distance between the object and the mirror itself. These

mirrors are called "converging" because they tend to collect light that falls

on them, refocusing parallel incoming rays toward a focus. This is because

the light is reflected at different angles, since the normal to the surface

differs with each spot on the mirror. Lastly, a convex mirror is a curved

mirror in which the reflective surface bulges toward the light source.
Convex mirrors reflect light outwards; therefore, they are not used to focus

light. The image is always virtual rays haven’t passed though the image,

diminished or smaller, and upright. These features make convex mirrors

very useful: everything appears smaller in the mirror, so they cover a wider

field of view than a normal plane mirror does as the image is "compressed".

A curved mirror is a mirror with a curved reflecting surface. The

surface may be either convex or concave. Most curved mirrors have

surfaces that are shaped like part of a sphere, but other shapes are

sometimes used in optical devices. The most common non-spherical type

are parabolic reflectors, found in optical devices such as reflecting

telescopes that need to image distant objects, since spherical mirror

systems, like spherical lenses, suffer from spherical aberration. Distorting

mirrors are used for entertainment. They have convex and concave regions

that produce deliberately distorted images. Curved mirrors come in two

basic types: those that converge parallel incident rays of light and those

that diverge parallel incident rays of light. A spherical mirror is a mirror

which has the shape of a piece cut out of a spherical surface. There are two

types of spherical mirrors: concave, and convex. These are illustrated in

Figure 1. The most commonly occurring examples of concave mirrors are

shaving mirrors and makeup mirrors. As is well-known, these types of

mirrors magnify objects placed close to them. The most commonly

occurring examples of convex mirrors are the passenger-side wing mirrors

of cars. These types of mirrors have wider fields of view than equivalent

flat mirrors, but objects which appear in them generally look smaller than

they really are.

Figure 2. Difference between concave and convex mirrors

The image formed by any mirror is located either where the reflected

light converges, or where the reflected light appears to diverge from.

Parabolic mirrors are really the only mirrors that focus parallel rays to a

single point, but as long as the rays don't get too far from the principal axis

then the equation above applies for spherical mirrors.

 A spherical mirror is one of the easiest objects to analyze. Typically,

such a mirror is not a complete sphere, but a spherical cap — a piece sliced

from a larger imaginary sphere with a single cut. Although one could

argue that this statement is quantifiably false, since ball bearings are

complete spheres and they are shiny and plentiful. Nonetheless as far as

optical instruments go, most spherical mirrors are spherical caps.

In this section, a few key concepts which are needed to study image

formation by a concave spherical mirror will be discussed and introduced.

The normal to the center of the mirror is called the principal axis. The mirror

is assumed to be rotationally symmetric about this axis. Hence, we can

represent a three-dimensional mirror in a two-dimensional diagram,

without loss of generality. The point V at which the principal axis touches

the surface of the mirror is called the vertex. The point C, on the principal

axis, which is equidistant from all points on the reflecting surface of the

mirror is called the center of curvature. The distance along the principal axis

from point C to point V is called the radius of curvature of the mirror, and is

denoted R. It is found experimentally that rays striking a concave mirror

parallel to its principal axis, and not too far away from this axis, are

reflected by the mirror such that they all pass through the same point F on
the principal axis. This point, which is lies between the center of curvature

and the vertex, is called the focal point, or focus, of the mirror. The distance

along the principal axis from the focus to the vertex is called the focal

length of the mirror, and is denoted f.

As students, we are going to assume that all light-rays which strike a

mirror parallel to its principal axis (e.g., all rays emanating from a distant

object) are brought to a focus at the same point F. Of course, as mentioned

above, this is only an approximation. It turns out that as rays from a distant

object depart further from the principal axis of a concave mirror, they are

brought to a focus ever closer to the mirror, as shown in Figure 6. This lack

of perfect focusing of a spherical mirror is called spherical aberration. The

approximation in which we neglect spherical aberration is called

the paraxial approximation. Likewise, the study of image formation under

this approximation is known as paraxial optics. This field of optics was first

investigated systematically by the famous German mathematician Karl

Friedrich Gauss in 1841.

By geometry, it can be demonstrated that the only type of mirror

which does not suffer from spherical aberration is a parabolic mirror, for an

instance, a mirror whose reflecting surface is the surface of revolution of a

parabola. Thus, a ray traveling parallel to the principal axis of a parabolic

mirror is brought to a focus at the same point F, no matter how far the ray

is from the axis. Since the path of a light-ray is completely reversible, it

follows that a light source placed at the focus F of a parabolic mirror yields

a perfectly parallel beam of light, after the light has reflected off the surface

of the mirror. Parabolic mirrors are more difficult, and, therefore, more

expensive, to make than spherical mirrors. Thus, parabolic mirrors are only

used in situations where the spherical aberration of a conventional

spherical mirror would be a serious problem. The receiving dishes of radio

telescopes are generally parabolic.

Incoming radio waves are being reflected by them from a distant

astronomical source and bring them to a focus at a single point, where a

detector is placed. In this case, since the sources are extremely faint, it is

imperative to avoid the signal losses which would be associated with

spherical aberration. A car headlight consists of a lightbulb placed at the

focus of a parabolic reflector. The use of a parabolic reflector enables the

headlight to cast a very straight beam of light ahead of the car. The beam

would be nowhere near as well-focused were a spherical reflector used

instead.
 Often, mirrors reflect light and produce a certain image. There are

three kinds of mirrors: plane, concave, and convex mirrors. A concave

mirror is also called a converging mirror because it reflects light rays such

that they converge in front of the mirror. A concave mirror can form real

and virtual images depending on the object distance. A convex mirror is

also called a diverging mirror because it reflected rays are diverging. A

convex mirror can only form virtual images that are erect, smaller than the

object, and located behind the mirror.

The center of the surface of a spherical mirror is called the vertex. The

distance from the vertex to the center of the sphere from where the mirror

is cut is the radius R of the mirror. Halfway between the vertex and the

center of the mirror is the focal point F or focus. The distance from the focal

point to the vertex is called the focal length of the mirror. The focal length is

half of the radius. The focal length is related to the magnifying capacity of

the mirror.

EQUATIONS FOR THIS EXPERIMENT

The mirror equation relates the object distance s, the image distance

s’, and the focal length f.

 1 1 1
= +
f s s'
(1)

The magnification M is the comparison of the image size and the

object size.

hi
M= (2)
ho

The magnification M is also the ratio of the image distance and object

distance.

−s
M= (3)
s'

The negative sign is for the orientation of the image. If the

magnification is positive, the image is erect. The image is inverted if the

magnification is negative.

In Experiment No. 111, a concave mirror was used to locate real

images. A concave mirror can form real and virtual images depending on

the object distance. The focal length of the mirror will also be computed

using the mirror equation. This is also the objective of the said experiment:

to compute the focal length of a concave mirror using the mirror equation.
 In this experiment, we were given some materials to be used for the

experiment, that were provided by the laboratory technicians. Such

material is Concave Mirror, Image Screen, Optics bench, Meter stick and a

Candle.

Figure 3. Materials Used for the Experiment

 The concave mirror was used to reflect the image formed in the

image screen. Image screen served as the display area where the image

formed by the concave mirror and candle as the light source. The optics

bench served as the platform where the setup for the experiment was

formed. Lastly, the meter stick was used to measure the length and

distances between the light source, image formed, and object as the

experiment was conducted and executed.

The experiment was divided into three parts. These include the

following: (1) Object distance greater than the image distance, (2) Image

distance greater than the object distance, and finally (3) Object distance

equal to image distance.

PART I.

For the initial part of the experiment which requires that the object

distance is greater than the image distance, the apparatuses were set up in

a way that the projection screen is placed between the light source and a

movable concave mirror. The concave mirror’s position was adjusted until

a clear image of the candle id formed on the screen, as shown on figure 4.

After doing so, the distance from the candle to the mirror object distance
was measured. The focal length of the concave mirror was then computed.

These steps were repeated for two more trials. The data gathered were then

tabulated in the data sheet, refer to Table 1.

Figure 4. Set up for Part I.

Table 1. Object Distance Greater than Image Distance

Object Distance, Image Distance,
TRIAL Focal Length, f
s s’
1 30.0 cm 10.0 cm 7.50 cm
2 40.0 cm 10.0 cm 8.00 cm
3 50.0 cm 10.0 cm 8.33 cm
Average Focal Length 7.94 cm
Focal Length from Table 3 8.50 cm
Percentage Difference 6.59 %
The table above shows the object distance is greater than the image

distance. In this table, object distance was labelled as s, image distance as s’,

and focal length as f. We were tasked to conduct three (3) trials for this

part. For the object distance, we got the values of 30 cm, 40 cm, and 50 cm,

respectively. These measurements were measured with the use of a meter

stick and getting the distance of the object from the candle to the concave
mirror. Next, the data for the image distance were gathered by using a

meter stick to measure the distance from the concave mirror until the

image screen. However, there was a limit for this part. We listed down the

distance where the image was most obvious from. The values we got from

the trials were 10 cm, 10 cm and 10 cm, consecutively. For the third

column, focal length, we obtained the values 7.50 cm, 8.00 cm, and 8.33 cm,

successively. The average focal length was gotten by adding the three

values of focal length and dividing the sum by three. The average focal

length for this part was 7.94 cm. Then, we also got a value for the focal

length from table 3, which will be discussed later, and it was 8.50 cm.

Comparing these values result in a 6.59% of discrepancy.

PART II.

For the next part of the experiment which requires that the image

distance is greater than the object distance, the apparatuses were set up in a

way that the projection screen. But this time, the candle is between the

screen and the concave mirror. The concave mirror’s position was adjusted

until a clear image of the candle id formed on the screen. After doing so,

the distance from the candle to the mirror was measured. The focal length

of the concave mirror was then computed. These steps were repeated for
two more trials. Also, the average focal length was computed by adding

the three values of the focal length and dividing the sum by three. Again,

the focal length from Table 3 was also in this table and compared with the

focal length of this table and was listed down as percentage difference. The

data gathered were then tabulated in the data sheet, refer to Table 2.

Figure 5. Set up for Part II.

Table 2. Image Distance Greater than Object Distance

Object Distance, Image Distance,
TRIAL Focal Length, f
s s’
1 10.0 cm 33.0 cm 7.67 cm
2 10.5 cm 35.0 cm 8.08 cm
3 9.0 cm 34.5 cm 7.14 cm
Average Focal Length 7.63 cm
Focal Length from Table 3 8.50 cm
 Percentage Difference 10.23 %

The table above shows the object distance that was greater than the

image distance. In this table, object distance was labelled as s, image

distance as s’, and focal length as f. We were tasked to conduct three (3)

trials for this part. For the object distance, we got the values of 10.0 cm, 10.5

cm and 9.0 cm respectively. These measurements were measured with the

use of a meter stick and getting the distance of the object from the candle to

the concave mirror. Next, the data for the image distance were gathered by

using a meter stick to measure the distance from the concave mirror until

the image screen. However, there was a limit for this part. We listed down

the distance where the image was most obvious from. The values we got

from the trials were 33.0 cm, 35.0 cm and 34.5 cm, consecutively. For the

third column, focal length, we obtained the values 7.67 cm, 8.08 cm, and

7.14 cm, successively. The average focal length was gotten by adding the

three values of focal length and dividing the sum by three. The average

focal length for this part was 7.63 cm. Then, we also got a value for the

focal length from table 3, which will be discussed later, and it was 8.50 cm.

Comparing these values result in a 10.23 % of discrepancy.

PART III.

For the last part of this experiment, it involves the image distance

equal to object distance, the procedures for the first and second parts were

repeated but this time the candle is side by side with the screen as in Figure

6. The distance of the concave mirror is adjusted until a sharp image is

formed on the screen. The focal length of the concave mirror was then

computed, refer to table 3.

Table 3. Image Distance Equal to Object Distance

Object Distance, Image Distance,
TRIAL Focal Length, f
s s’
1 17.0 cm 17.0 cm 8.50 cm
Figure 6. Set up for Part III.
 In this section of the experiment, there was only a single trial wherein

all the data for object distance, image distance and focal length are already

included. In addition to this, the image distance was said to be equal to

object distance. In this experiment we were asked to determine the focal

( s ) (s ' )
length of a converging mirror using the formula f = wherein we were
s+s'

able to identify the focal length constantly considering the position of the

image and the object. In this part of the experiment, we got a value of 17.0

cm for both the object distance and the image distance. Since it was already

mentioned in the prior part of this paper, the focal length was 8.50 cm. This

clearly shows that in all the tables that the focal length is only just an

approximately half of the average of the image and object distance.

Therefore, we decided to assign the focal length in table 3 as our accepted

value, because in that way we would be able to prove that the image and

object distance’s focal length is only half average. For this experiment, we

used this theory to prove the information that we gathered:

Let:

s=s ' =x
 s+ s '
( s ) ( s') 2
'
=
s+ s 2

( x ) ( x ) x+ x
→ =
x+x 4

x2 2 x
→ =
2x 4

x x
→ =
2 2

→ 2 x=2 x
CONCLUSION

In this experiment, Experiment No. 111: Spherical Mirrors, we have

dealt with the two kinds of spherical mirrors, namely: Convex and Concave

mirrors. On one hand, convex mirrors refer to a kind of spherical mirror that

reflect light outwards; therefore, they are not used to focus light. Concave

mirrors, on the other hand, reflect light inward to one focal point, therefore

they are used to focus light.

For an

instance, when an object is placed in front of a mirror, we see an image of the

object placed. This image appears to be behind the mirror and is

called “Image.” The object is the source from which incident ray occurs and

the image that is formed is because of the reflected rays. The image formed

maybe “Real” or “Virtual.” Wherein the “real” image is formed when the

light rays from the object intersect each other after reflection. Real images are
formed inverted and can be projected on to a screen, while a “virtual” image

is formed when the light rays from the object don’t intersect each other after

reflection. Although they “appear” to do so when they’re produced behind

the mirror. Virtual images are “always” erect and cannot be projected on a

screen.

A concave mirror is also known as a “Converging Mirror” since in

these type of mirrors light rays converges at a point after they strike and are

reflected from the reflecting surface of the concave mirror. In most of the

cases, a concave mirror produces real and inverted images except when the

object is placed very near to the mirror. Furthermore, in this experiment,

even if we mix up the position of the candle and screen, the location of the

mirror would constantly compensate to be capable to reflect a clear

inverted image of the flame on the screen.

Concluding the experiment, the distance of an object from the mirror

is inversely proportional to the distance of its reflection to be sharper, thus,

increasing the distance of the object will result in a shorter distance for the

reflection of that object to be sharper and more obvious. In contrast to this,

if the distance of the object from the mirror is lesser, the distance for its

reflection to be more obvious must be greater.