Why do I see a reflection of a reflection???

Question

When I hold a mirror up to another mirror, all I can see is another mirror reflected in it, etc., etc., etc.!!! Can anyone please tell me what's going on here??? Thank you!!! - El Chupacabra -

Answer 1

Light is bouncing between the mirrors several times before striking your eyeball.

Answer 2

Exactly what it looks like is going on. The mirrors are simply reflecting each other's images, including what is already reflected in the other mirror. The light bouncing off the mirror into your eye has bounced back and forth on the mirrors more than once; more specifically, it's bounced off a mirror surface the same number of times as the 'depth' of the image in the mirror, where an image of a normal (non-mirror) object has a 'depth' of one. Theoretically, if you had two perfect mirrors and set them precisely facing each other, a wave of light could bounce back and forth between them forever, creating an infinite chain of images. In the real world, mirrors are not perfect and most of the light waves are not directly perpendicular to the mirrors, so the 'deeper' images are generally darker and fuzzier, as well as being smaller.

Answer 3

If you position two mirrors at correct angles and this question should be in another section!