Why does a broken mirror, even if glued together, would still show a distorted reflection?

Question

I'm just wondering, what happens to it that once broken, it is ruined permanently...

Answer 1

haunted

Answer 2

its because the reflective part of a mirror is on the back of the glass. the light reflecting through the glass must also pass through the cracks in the glass... as the cracks are not a physically consistent medium (as is the unbroken mirror is) the image is distorted

Answer 3

the reflective layer is still broken.  It will never give you a picture perfect reflection.

Answer 4

I believe that the glass gets bent slightly, thus losing any chance of a getting a perfect reflection.

Answer 5

Because there are still cracks in the mirror.  Even if you glue it all back there are still going to be tiny areas of imperfection

Answer 6

It is simply because it is simply very difficult (if not impossible) using a glue to restore the smothness of the mirror surface. When the mirror is still one piece, it is very smooth and, more importantly, very flat.

Once it is broken into many pieces and you use a glue, the pieces are not joined together in order to form a smooth and flat surface again. Because of its reflective function, the slightess imperfection greatly distorts the image reflated.

Surface of mirror before it was broken: _______________________

Surface of mirror after broken and glued: -----__/\___---___/\___

It is surely technically one piece (glued) but the small pieces were not joined to form the flat and smooth surface as before.

Answer 7

Because it's broken! and that's why u get 7-years bad luck!!!!

Answer 8

because microscopically , its not as flat as it used to be before it was broken. some microscopic peices broke, and you missed them because you cant see them.

Answer 9

I didn't know that happened..maybe because of the cracks..i don't know.

Answer 10

This is because there are some pieces so small that are broken that you can't see are missing, thats why you don't have the exact pieces to stick them together to create a perfect mirror without a flaw in the reflection. You also can't just use glue cos the angle of gluing may not be correct

Answer 11

it might be because u didn't glue it perfectly together, which would mess it up, bending the reflection

Answer 12

I'm thinking because you couldn't glue it together perfectly.  The glue itself underneath the broken glass would make some of the glass slightly bulge out more than other pieces.  Plus, you might lose small fragments, maybe even too small for the eye to see.

Answer 13

A mirror works on light when the mirror is whole as one piece it makes a Parallel Image that you see being you. When a mirror is broken and put together even with glue it still has seems and there for each piece works on its own to do the same thing. Hence becoming a distorted image.

Also if an edge is not quite together it will in turn make a magnifier affect on the other part to give many distorted looks. This is how they achieve the affects they do in fun houses using bent and broken mirrors. :)

Answer 14

Unless you glued it together in the exact shape of the mirror when it was still unbroken, it will show a distorted image. You can fix a mirror once it's broken. If you put all the peices in the correct spaces, it'll be perfecly fine. If you asking because that happened to your own mirror, all you have to do is get some clear super-glue and put it together as perfect and tight as you can so you can see clearly in it again. That was a great question, by the way!!! ^_^

Answer 15

Because no matter how hard you try, you will never get the glued pieces at a perfect 0 degree angle with each other.  Even if they are one degree off, the light rays will be reflected off at different angles and, depending on how far the mirror is from the observer, the image will be distorted.  You can place all the shards together on a perfectly flat table and look down on them and the distortion will be almost all gone.