Who doesn’t enjoy decoding a secret message? One afternoon, armed with an empty Clinique compact, I thought I’d challenge my 8 year old daughter to see if she could figure out a secret message while learning about mirrors in the process. Little did I know she was going to leave me with her own message that was that much sweeter than mine.
We began by looking at images that were symmetrical like stick figures. The looked the same in the mirror as on the paper.
Then I showed her a message that I wrote in secret code (letters in reverse image) to see if she could decipher it. It didn’t take long for her to figure it out and she was pleased at my message!
Then we played with words that were simple palindromes like ‘MOM’ (words that are spelled the same backwards and forwards).
That’s when she placed the mirror on top of the word and there it appeared. She looked at me, giggled, and said, “Look it says ‘Wow Mom’!” I’m fairly certain at the young age of 8 she wasn’t being sarcastic – she genuinely enjoyed doing this with me.
What’s the science: Mirrors don’t actually flip images left to right but instead they flip images front to back. Consider a rubber stamp that you face away from yourself and stamp to a piece of paper. It will appear backwards. Or if you hold a piece of paper away from you then the image on the front of the paper appears backwards on the backside of the paper facing you.
Mirrors. You got to love them! Go grab your leftover makeup mirrors and have some fun deciphering your own secret messages!
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