Magnification question?

Question

What is meant by a magnification less than 1? What does a negative magnification imply?

Answer 1

(linear) Magnification is ratio between the image's height to the object's height. So if magnification is less than 1 - it's virtual image displayed by a concave lens - shorter ( = closer to focus) image. The magnification less than 0 means, that the image is in the negative direction (reversed) - it's when you're looking through a convex lens - you see a real, reversed image.