Lookie There

So here are a couple pics from the past which relate to the stuff we are learning now…if only I knew this stuff then, haha. I didn’t have a chance to upload any from this weekend, so I dug into my pictures folder. The first one of the Washington Monument reminded me of the lab we did where we measured the shortest possible height of a mirror to put in our house. Between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial is a GIANT reflecting pool that allows you to see the Monument’s entire reflection when standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Unfortunately that day we went to the Lincoln Memorial was the same day we visited the White House so I didn’t have my camera handy. The first pic is one I took, but the second one that I found is better…thanks Google images!! I looked up the measurements of the pool’s length and the Monument’s height, and they are not 1:2. However, because it seemed like the reflection of the Monument fit so snuggly in the pool, I figured that there must be a different ratio between the two; one which factors in the fact that the pool (mirror) is on the ground and the viewer is standing on the steps ant the Memorial. That would’ve been a killer lab. Moving on. The other picture that I have up is of a crystal ball..ooohhh. I took this pic at the Museum of Natural History (yay! Night at the Museum) and the crystal ball itself actually acts as a lens because of its spherical shape. From what I witnessed while playing with converging lenses today, I realized that because of the distance I viewed the ball relative to its center, I passed the object’s focal length and therefore saw that an inverted image of the other side of the room. And as I viewed the room, I moved my head gradually backwards, which altered the size of the image; another thing which I saw today in class. Unlike when dealing with mirrors (distance doesn’t affect image), when using lenses, image size relates inversely with object distance.