Question

What is lateral inversion? Explain by giving a suitable example.

Answer 1

Hint: Lateral inversion is an effect that is created by the plane mirror. It reverses images from left to right. The letters in the ambulance are written laterally inverted because we can properly align the proper alignment of image.

Complete answer:
Consider the image formed by the plane mirror. When you stand in front of a mirror, you can see your reflection. This reflection is such that our left appears right and right appears left. This phenomenon is called Lateral Inversion. This also can be visualised if you write a word say ‘MIRROR’ on a paper and keep in front of the mirror, we can find that ‘MIRROR’ is reflected as ‘MIЯЯOЯ’.

In other words, it happens when the image of an object is erect i.e., upright but is inverted in its lateral side. It is called lateral inversion here; the left side comes to the right and the right comes to the left. Also, if the laterally inverted word is written on a piece of paper and read from behind, it will appear erect, even though it is still reversed as it is a mirror image but letters can be recognised now. This front-back reversal is also called lateral inversion.

Hence, the answer is left of the object appears right and vice versa.

Additional Information:
The characteristics of an image formed by a plane mirror are, the image formed behind the mirror image is laterally inverted. The size of the image is the same as that of the object. The image formed is erect.

Note: There are two laws of reflection and they are, the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection are always equal. The incident ray, the normal at the point, and the reflected ray, all lie on the same plane.