The World of Mirrors

An inexplicable halo of magic and the mystery that is emanating from an ordinary mirror even now impresses us, as it did our ancestors during the primeval times. Mirrors reflect everything in front of them, but refuse to le us ‘see' their reflecting surfaces! Doesn't it add to the eternal mystery of mirrors?

When the human beings at the infancy of history, began to notice the mirror magic in nature, it was never through the framed glass mirrors or the highly polished metallic mirrors of the modern times. Tranquil water surfaces in the wooded areas in a serene, sunny day could have been the first looking glass that reflected a wonder struck human face. In those distant times, our forefathers could not even believe that the faces looking at them from the water were actually belonging to them. Probably that could be the reason why Narcissus, the hapless character of the Greek mythology, tragically fell in love with his reflection in water, his image!

A mirror becomes a mirror only when it has a highly polished smooth surface for an image to form. The most familiar form of mirrors is the ordinary plain mirror. Apart from using it as our trusted confidante that helps us in our daily grooming, we use mirrors as decorative items too at our homes, offices and many public places. The images that we see in most of the mirrors are of virtual types, though there are varieties of mirrors that form ‘real' images.

There are several categories of mirrors that we use in our daily lives. There are the common plane, spherical, cylindrical, convex, and concave types that are based on the reflective surface contour. Then we have the parallel mirrors for generating infinite images of a single of objects or arrangement of multiple mirrors as in a kaleidoscope to create inestimable varieties of colors and patterns. All of us are familiar with the rear view mirrors being fitted in our automobiles. They are really the convex mirrors. Mirrors are very important in science and technology too. A type of microscopic mirrors is the heart of some advance televisions and video equipment. Telescopes, microscopes, laser equipments and some of the precision instruments are also using high quality mirrors.

In the early days, mirrors were used to be made out of highly polished metal sheets. But in modern times, mirrors are made by sputtering a very thin layer of molten aluminum or silver over rear surface of a glass plate in high vacuum. This sputtering process is done on the face of the plate if the mirrors are to be used in optical equipments. This is done to avoid the minor reflections from the glass.

Apart from the categories indicated earlier, according to the common applications, we can group the mirrors. There are many major manufacturing and marketing companies dealing with domestic mirrors. Some of them use their own nomenclature for specific applications. Here is a list of such application based names:

Bathroom Mirrors, Illuminated Bathroom Mirrors, Cheval/Vanity Mirrors, Decorative Mirrors, Art Deco Mirrors, Glass Framed Mirrors, Mirrored Furniture, Metal Framed Mirrors, Mirrored Art, Miscellaneous Over mantle Mirrors, Value Wall Mirrors, Venetian Mirrors and Wood Framed Mirrors.

  Ironically, though an ordinary mirror may be contributing much to ‘inflate' our ego, it does it with an absolute detachment to the subject it images. We mostly miss that philosophically profound truth.