Why does the mirror change left and right?

The mirror has a perfectly flat and smooth surface, so everything in it is reflected directly. If a person stands directly in front of the reflection, then a ray of light entering his eye moves in a straight line and is reflected from the surface in a straight line. The law of reflection applies: the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection.

Attention! The law of wave optics is valid for perfectly reflective surfaces. This is exactly the surface a mirror has.

How does a mirror reflect?

Everyone who looks into it sees their own reflection. If at this time he waves his right hand to himself, then his reflection will wave to him from the same side. The chair standing at the back left in the mirror is also at the back left. If, on the contrary, a living person stands face to face, then his right and left will change. In this case, when waving your right hand, the person standing opposite will do it with your left.

Why exactly does the mirror change left and right?

Why does it seem to someone looking in the mirror that the reflection is asymmetrical and waves at him not with his right, but with his left hand, while his head and legs remain in their usual places? The point is the law of gravity acting on humanity. Seeing one's reflection, people's brains mentally move to the opposite place.

Without realizing it, all earthlings imagine how they walk with their feet, turn, as is typical for people, and stand opposite themselves. This is where a deceptive feeling of asymmetry is created.Moreover, no matter which direction they turn, all directions of movement are equivalent for them. A person moves mentally in the position “head is above, legs are below”, and he cannot imagine any other position of his body.

The confusion with asymmetry is easier to understand using the example of a sheet of text. A sheet of text turned towards the mirror reflects it not from left to right, but in the opposite direction. Logic deceives people in this case. The text is reflected correctly as a person holds it relative to his eyes. If you take a transparent sheet with text written with a black felt-tip pen and turn it towards you, as expected, then the reflection of the text will be correct and it will be easy to read. In other words, it was not the mirror that turned the leaf, but the man himself.

Why doesn't the mirror change top and bottom?

The people of planet Earth are subject to the law of gravity, therefore in their minds there is an axis perpendicular to the surface of the earth, a parallel to the force of gravity. Therefore, they care where their feet and heads are. All rotations are considered by them relative to the perpendicular axis. If earthlings moved relative to the horizontal axis, jumping to the desired point, for example, from head to toe, it would seem to them that the reflection had a head down and legs up.

Asymmetry is a psychological illusion expressed by the presence of an axis not in the mirror, but in the human mind, which in turn creates an asymmetric illusion of rotation in space. All together caused by the presence of pronounced gravity on planet Earth.