Answer:
Ray diagrams can be used to determine the image location, size, orientation and type of image formed of objects when placed at a given location in front of a mirror. The use of these diagrams was demonstrated earlier in Lesson 3 and in Lesson 4. Ray diagrams provide useful information about object-image relationships, yet fail to provide the information in a quantitative form. While a ray diagram may help one determine the approximate location and size of the image, it will not provide numerical information about image distance and image size. To obtain this type of numerical information, it is necessary to use the Mirror Equation and the Magnification Equation. The mirror equation expresses the quantitative relationship between the object distance (do), the image distance (di), and the focal length (f). The equation is stated as follows:
The magnification equation relates the ratio of the image distance and object distance to the ratio of the image height (hi) and object height (ho). The magnification equation is stated as follows:
These two equations can be combined to yield information about the image distance and image height if the object distance, object height, and focal length are known. Their use was demonstrated in Lesson 3 for concave mirrors and will be demonstrated here for convex mirrors. As a demonstration of the effectiveness of the Mirror equation and Magnification equation, consider the following example problem and its solution.
