What is the scientific/optical term for when you look into a mirror and it seems like you can see forever?
436768
it is only an infinite refrexions of light. the device used to do it is called KALEIDOSCOPE
1137794
You are looking at a magnifying mirror ;)
639495
Anything is visible beacuse either light emitted from it, or light reflected from it reaches our eyes. If light passes through something completely, it will not be reflected to our eyes, and the object will become transparent or invisible. Glass comes very near this.
245658
Yes, from a physics perspective there are an infinite number of colors.\n\nBut from the perspective of your retina, there are a finite number that you can perceive, in the thousands as I recall.
1135706
An object that absorbs all the light that falls on it, then it is called a "blackbody". If an object allows all light that falls on it to pass through unimpeded, then that's an "invisible body".
713279
Yes... the link below calls them optical tentacles, but that's a fancy way of saying "eyes".
405471
An optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that are deceptive or misleading [1]. Information gathered by the eye is processed by the brain to give a perception that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source. A conventional assumption is that there are physiological illusions that occur naturally and cognitive illusions that can be demonstrated by specific visual tricks that apparently show particular assumptions in the human perceptual system [2].\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusions\n\nHistory of Optical Illusions\n\nEpicharmus and Protagorus are the two people who invented optical illusions.  They lived around 450 B.C. and believed that our senses (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching) were not paying enough attention and were messing us up when we would look at something weird. Epicharmus said exactly “The mind sees and the mind hears. The rest is blind and deaf.” Protagorus didn’t believe that what Epicharmus said was true. He thought that our senses and bodies were fine. He believed it was our environment that was messing us up. His words were “Man is nothing but a bindle of sensations.” \n\n         Aristotle thought that both Epicharms and Protagorus were both right and wrong. Aristotle lived around 350 B.C. and said our senses can be trusted, but easily be fooled. \n\n         Plato, who lived around 300 B.C., said our five senses need our mind to help to understand what they see. What he is saying is that the eyes and mind need to work together. That is what most people think now.\n\n         It took a while for people to realize optical illusions again. Then in 1829 a psychologist named Johannes Mueller wrote two books about visual illusions. He was the first person to call distortions visual illusion. That is why most people knew what he was talking about in his books. Then in 1854 another psychologist named J.J. Oppel finished where Johannes Mueller left off. He made a paper that had 10 pages of line illusions. Nobody had seen one of them until J.J. had published it in the paper. As soon as the people saw them, they became very popular. Almost everyone liked it for a while. It was so popular that an illusion was made called the MuellerLyer illusions. Also 12 theories were made to explain it.\n\nhttp://www.tqnyc.org/NYC052034/History.htm
284388
I read one article before about something like that in an encyclopedia. I believe it's called the strobe effect.\n\nGomen ne, I am no science whiz but I found this more detailed article. Hope this helps.
792151
Light bounces off of a mirror instead of being sucked into it.
114491
Mirrors don't reflect "substances," they reflect light. As far as things we cannot see in a mirror, they would be the same as the things we cannot see in any other circumstance. Anything that reflects or emits only light waves that are outside of our visuale spectrum (infrared or ultraviolet), or anything that reflects or emits no light at all (I think black holes qualify) wouldn't be visible in a mirror.
321224
http://illusionsetc.blogspot.com/\n\nhttp://www.panoptikum.net/optischetaeuschungen/opticalillusions.htm\n\nhttp://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=optical%20illusions&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8\n\nhttp://search.yahoo.com/search?p=optical+illusions&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8
843731
there is an optical effect like this ( it is just a refraction at an interface - like water and air ) and sorry i can't remember either ( i will search tho )\n\ncool i searched the term ATMOSPHERIC REFRACTION and guess what LOL( go to Wikipedia )
38582
I realize I am out of my league as far as physics,, but the image reflects directly back to the source in front of it. For the reflection to appear upside down or vertically mirrored the light would have to be bent.\n\nok looked it up.  It is because of the predicatable behavior of light known as the law of reflection
445419
It's a parapsychological phenomenon. It means that someone can use the power of their own mind to see things, objects, places, etc. that are remote in distance and time. That is, they can see inside closed rooms, even in another country. It's almost as if they are in spirit form, and walk in spirit form, and can see through different eyes.
704068
Say you shine a flashlight into a mirror. Then put a mirror behind the flashlight and remove the flashlight. Given that the 2 mirrors are exactly parallel, will the light just bounce back and forth forever? No - the light travels in waves and each time it reflects back, some of the light is not hitting the mirror exactly at 90 degrees and is reflected off on an angle. The light will reflect away and eventually dissipate completely. \nIf you try to trap light in a box, as it bounces off the walls inside, it will dissipate into energy (heat). The temperature of the inside of the box will raise - but just infintestimly so.\nRemember all of this will take place at the speed of light.
329439
Ha!  I know just what you mean.  Basically a reflective surface reflects everything and most everything is visible depending on your position in relation to the object.  For example, an object held behind your back can be seen by a person standing in front of you if they change their position slightly.  It is a fascinating and wonderful phenomenon.
214453
No matter how big or small a telescope is, photons of light still have to touch the 'scope mirror in order to be seen and/or photographed.\n\nIt's interesting, though, to realize that with these big telescopes we're seeing extremely distant objects as though we'd been physically transported thousands of light years closer to them. For example, if you're looking through a 20-power telescope at some galaxy that's 10,000 light years away from Earth, the view through the telescope is as if you're only 500 light years away.\n\nGod is spelled B-I-G B-A-N-G\nPBrax@netscape.com