[Guest]

Hello

I'm new to this forum and I hope I'll enjoy my stay. I'm French so please forgive some mistakes I could make in my posts.

Please let me tell you a simple teaser dealing with mirror :

It's the morning and you are dressing up to go to work. You are facing a vertical mirror hooked to one of your bedroom's walls. The mirror is about one third your size long and its upper edge is at the same level as the top of your head. You are standing about one meter away from the mirror.

You would like to check how your pants' lower ends are covering your shoes. Should you :

- move forward?

- move backward?

- do something else?

We'll assume that the mirror must stay hooked to the wall.

I hope my post is clear and understandable. Looking forward to reading your answers!

[Guest]

By moving forward or backward you can't see your shoes. Bending your upper body forward also don't help, because you lose your height by bending. I think the only way is climbing to a chair.

[Guest]

Nobody's answer is pretty good. I may say it is the correct answer actually.

For those who are still searching,

you can use the famous Thales theorem dealing with triangles and parallel lines to find the answer, or at least find what is useless among the suggestions.

[Guest]

You post is very concise and the English very good, so no need to apologise

No matter how far away from the mirror you are (1cm or 1 mile) to see your feet you would need to look through the mirror at the half-way point of your body (assuming the distance from your eyes to top of head and from floor to bottom of trousers are roughly the same!).

As the mirror is only a third of your height this obviously would never work.

Solution:

Get someone else to check your trousers!

[peace*out]

Welcome!!

is the mirror on the ground or on a slant??

[Guest]

you should move forward so that you can look inside the mirror which should reflect from ur head down to your toe. it shouldnt matter it is only one third of your height and the top of the mirror is up to ur head because if u look into the mirror it can reflect ur whole body. u shud just look closer. actually this is just my answer

Edited October 21, 2008 by swt

[Guest]

Welcome!!

is the mirror on the ground or on a slant??

The mirror is on the wall, in vertical position.

[Guest]

Why bother using the mirror? Just look down and check your pants.

[Guest]

JUMP

[Guest]

Hello

I'm new to this forum and I hope I'll enjoy my stay. I'm French so please forgive some mistakes I could make in my posts.

Please let me tell you a simple teaser dealing with mirror :

It's the morning and you are dressing up to go to work. You are facing a vertical mirror hooked to one of your bedroom's walls. The mirror is about one third your size long and its upper edge is at the same level as the top of your head. You are standing about one meter away from the mirror.

You would like to check how your pants' lower ends are covering your shoes. Should you :

- move forward?

- move backward?

- do something else?

We'll assume that the mirror must stay hooked to the wall.

I hope my post is clear and understandable. Looking forward to reading your answers!

Look down at your feet. This doesn't specify you have to check your shoes by the mirror's reflection.

[Guest]

He he, nice try!

So far I can say we had 2 good answers, one with a good explanation of the problem (rjcb_23) and one with a good solution to it (nobody).

I suggest you to draw a simple scheme :

- one straight vertical line being your body, the upper extremity representing your eye

- one smaller straight vertical line being the mirror, its upper extremity aligned with your eye (more or less) and placed parallel to your body at a distance of your choice

- a third straight vertical line being the reflection of your body, symmetrically placed on the other side of the mirror

Now you must be able to draw a triangle representing the angle of vision available when looking "through" the mirror to your reflected body.

Given the rough dimensions you had in the first post, you can notice that the reflection is only visible from the top of the head down to the knees (approximately), not lower than that. What if you change the distance between the body and the mirror?

Edited October 21, 2008 by jeckos150

[Guest]

Move the mirror down one half of it's length.

Hello

I'm new to this forum and I hope I'll enjoy my stay. I'm French so please forgive some mistakes I could make in my posts.

Please let me tell you a simple teaser dealing with mirror :

It's the morning and you are dressing up to go to work. You are facing a vertical mirror hooked to one of your bedroom's walls. The mirror is about one third your size long and its upper edge is at the same level as the top of your head. You are standing about one meter away from the mirror.

You would like to check how your pants' lower ends are covering your shoes. Should you :

- move forward?

- move backward?

- do something else?

We'll assume that the mirror must stay hooked to the wall.

I hope my post is clear and understandable. Looking forward to reading your answers!

[Guest]

Here are the solutions you guys proposed and my comments about each :

By moving forward or backward you can't see your shoes. Bending your upper body forward also don't help, because you lose your height by bending. I think the only way is climbing to a chair.

Very clever and definitely possible in a bedroom

No matter how far away from the mirror you are (1cm or 1 mile) to see your feet you would need to look through the mirror at the half-way point of your body (assuming the distance from your eyes to top of head and from floor to bottom of trousers are roughly the same!).

As the mirror is only a third of your height this obviously would never work.

Good explanation of the problem

Solution:

Get someone else to check your trousers!

Funny but you cannot be sure that someone is available to check your outfit

Move the mirror down one half of it's length.

An equivalent solution to nobody's one, but it requires the possibility to change the hook's place. Why not?

I think of another solution, not suggested yet. But for now, I think that nobody's answer is the one I prefer.

Edited October 21, 2008 by jeckos150

[Guest]

on drawing a simple ray diagram one can see that the mirror, if placed at the eye level, must be at least half the height of the person so he/she can see his/her feet. This is independant of the distance of the person from the mirror. So neither moving forward, nor moving backward should help.

Some other clever trick must be required

[Guest]

Raise a digital camera/camera phone up with your hand and aim it at an angle to the bottom of the mirror, take a picture, and view it on the screen or on your computer. The increased height will allow you to see all the way down your body.

You should only do this once. That is, the first time you realize your mirror is too small. Then you should go out and buy a bigger mirror. Just think about how many times you look at your shoes in the mirror.

Edited October 21, 2008 by BigTime

[Guest]

You could always approach the mirror, stand a a small distance away (1 foot or so) and then lean forward against the mirror. Then you can see your feet (I've got a similar mirror, and I just tried it)