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#science Okay #science… one of the kids asked: “why when you see your reflection in a spoon why are you upside down?” Googled, but there was not a satisfactory answer.

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Word limit means I'll have to do this in sections: Physics talks about reflections in terms of 'incident rays' and 'reflected' ones. Incident rays are incoming light and I'm sure you can guess what reflected rays indicate. One more term will help in explaining this: "normal".

The normal is an imaginary line that lies perpendicular to the plane a light ray strikes before reflecting. The angle an incident rays makes with the normal will equal the angle made by the consequent reflected ray with respect to the normal - if a ray comes in at 45* it will depart at 45*.

With a curved reflective surface such as a spoon the planes are constantly changing depending on where the light strikes. (Gets a little difficult to explain from here on without diagrams, so apologies if I grasp a little). Each part of the curve creates a new 'normal'.