Over 6,458,000 live tutoring sessions served!
  • Home
  • How it works
  • About Us
  • Home
  • PhysicsPhysics IIReflection of Light
Top

Sign Convention for Spherical Mirrors

The following sign convention is used for measuring various distances in the ray diagrams of spherical mirrors:

  • All distances are measured from the pole of the mirror.
  • Distances measured in the direction of the incident ray are positive and the distances measured in the direction opposite to that of the incident rays are negative.
  • Distances measured above the principal axis are positive and that measured below the principal axis are negative.
sign convention concave mirror

sign convention convex mirror

Sub Topics
  • Table Showing the Sign Convention
 

Table Showing the Sign Convention

Back to Top
Type of mirroruvf Rhh of the image
RealVirtualRealVirtual
Concave mirror--+--+-+
Convex mirror-No real image++++No real image+

Reflection of Light
*AP and SAT are registered trademarks of the College Board.

About Us |  Contact Us |  Blog |  Homework Help |  Teaching Jobs |  Search Lessons |  Answers |  Calculators |  Worksheets

Copyright © 2010 - TutorVista.com, All rights reserved.