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How Mirrors Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: We're about to talk about mirrors. I set up it's
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: a SINCU. How are you Were you in the mirrors
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  Speaker 1: growing up? Now that we said, you know, I did
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  Speaker 1: it sccinctly, We're gonna just blow like three minutes, right, No,
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  Speaker 1: I was asking you if you were in the mirrors
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  Speaker 1: in the mirrors growing up? Yeah, I mean that didn't
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  Speaker 1: every kid go through a phase where they're like very
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  Speaker 1: obsessed with their looks and mirrors and things. Oh yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I was into myself. I wasn't in the mirrors. They
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  Speaker 1: were just means to end, you know. Yeah, But I
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  Speaker 1: like I was reading this and I kind of was
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  Speaker 1: just thinking myself and remembering laughing about I remember being
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  Speaker 1: like fifteen and like stopping to look at mirrors anytime
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  Speaker 1: there was one to see what looks like. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: now I just break them. I'd forgotten all about that
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  Speaker 1: phase of my life though, until you just brought it up,
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  Speaker 1: remember that. Yeah, it's nice to be able to not
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  Speaker 1: look at a mirror. Like some days. I'll go out,
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  Speaker 1: you know, after getting ready in the morning, and I
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  Speaker 1: have no idea what I actually look like. But I'm
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  Speaker 1: so and this is um this cross pollination with an
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  Speaker 1: earlier podcast. I suffered from body dysmorphic disorder so badly
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  Speaker 1: that I don't really know what I look like anyway.
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  Speaker 1: I think I look a bit like theme from taxidermia.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: What's that? It's not plusant? Okay, well you don't my friend.
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  Speaker 1: I don't even know what he looks like, but I
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  Speaker 1: can tell you don't look like him. I appreciate that, Chuck, Chuck,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: do you want to hear what I had in store? Like?
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I could not come up with an intro for this.
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  Speaker 1: Let's Websters defines mirror. I'm kidding. I always going to
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  Speaker 1: say something equally bad, though it was going to be
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  Speaker 1: something along the lines with mirrors are ubiquitous. I've seen
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  Speaker 1: at least six of them today. They weren't always that way, though, Chuck. Well,
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  Speaker 1: it says in the article here the full length mirrors
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  Speaker 1: have only been around four hundred years. That didn't seem right.
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  Speaker 1: That's not right, No, um full length mirrors. There is
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  Speaker 1: a type of full length mirror UM that has been
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  Speaker 1: around for about four hundred years. Full length mirrors, as
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  Speaker 1: far as I know, are mirrors capable of reflecting a
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  Speaker 1: full image of a person, have been around since about
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  Speaker 1: the first century a D. Actually, UM and mirrors us
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  Speaker 1: using surfaces, polished surfaces to see our own reflection. UM
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  Speaker 1: has been around since about six thousand BC. Yeah. The
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  Speaker 1: earliest ones were found in Anatolia, Turkey, and they're polished obsidian. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's a volcanic glass. Yeah, so it's it's dark. That's interesting,
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  Speaker 1: but it's still produced the best reflection, I guess at
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  Speaker 1: the time. At the time, I mean, you gotta you
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  Speaker 1: gotta go with what you what we have to work with, right, Well, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: but then after that they led them to um like
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  Speaker 1: silver and bronze and copper, polished polished reflection spasics and chuck.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever held a hunk of
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  Speaker 1: of copper or bronze I haven't, or silver I have. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: it's heavy, Yeah, it's real heavy. Right. So this actually
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  Speaker 1: limited the size of mirrors for centuries, right, Yeah, And
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  Speaker 1: they were just kind of decorative at first two right,
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  Speaker 1: I think so. And you also had to be extremely
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  Speaker 1: rich um to own one of these, right um. And
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  Speaker 1: then around I think the Middle Ages, we became capable
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  Speaker 1: of making glass, and all of a sudden it was
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  Speaker 1: like mirror technology just takes a huge leap forward. Well true,
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  Speaker 1: but not not super uh forward, because the sand was
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  Speaker 1: pretty impure back then they used to make the glass.
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  Speaker 1: So I think they, um they said in the article,
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  Speaker 1: was until like the Renaissance that it kind of really
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  Speaker 1: started becoming a little more polished, if you will, terrible.
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  Speaker 1: And then the Venetians are who really you know with
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  Speaker 1: a glass and everything. They just they just took in
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  Speaker 1: ran with it. Well. Even still, if you successfully made
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  Speaker 1: a mirror, um, it was probably extremely expensive as well
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  Speaker 1: because they were so rare. The process of manufacturing a
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  Speaker 1: mirror um very infrequently produced a usable mirror. That's what
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  Speaker 1: you're doing was adhering um melted molten metal onto glass,
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  Speaker 1: which almost always broke the glass. So when it didn't,
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure you're just like, oh my god's the first
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  Speaker 1: one in seven years? Right um? But that when I
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  Speaker 1: was reading this article, I didn't really think about it.
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  Speaker 1: That's what a mirror is, isn't it. I've even seen
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  Speaker 1: the back of mirrors and been like others like metal
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  Speaker 1: looks like spray painted on the back. That's exactly right.
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  Speaker 1: And that was the process, um what's it called silver
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  Speaker 1: ring that was invented by a guy named Justice von
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  Speaker 1: Liebig and in a team thirty five. If you figured
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  Speaker 1: out how to spray very thin layer of silver um
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  Speaker 1: or aluminum on the back or on one side of
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  Speaker 1: a glass, and they're, my friend, you have the modern mirror. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and now they I think they make it now by
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  Speaker 1: heating aluminum in a vacuum and kind of much the
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  Speaker 1: same way or different methods, but the same same concept.
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  Speaker 1: Go ahead, Well, I wanted to say when when you
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  Speaker 1: were talking about the Renaissance, the Venetians were they? I
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  Speaker 1: guess they had the secret of mirrors under wraps like
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  Speaker 1: the Mason's very much so. Um. And if you were
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  Speaker 1: a mirror maker and it got out that you had
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  Speaker 1: told someone how to make mirrors, you were frequently killed. Right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: trade secret. But when mirrors were introduced, um, when good
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  Speaker 1: mirrors were introduced, not polished obsidian, things changed a little bit,
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  Speaker 1: especially with art. Right. Yeah, I never really considered that,
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  Speaker 1: but that it spawned something that would become a mark
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  Speaker 1: of the art world, which is the self portrait. Right
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  Speaker 1: before that, you couldn't draw yourself because you could not
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  Speaker 1: see yourself. That's exactly right, And you could, but I
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  Speaker 1: mean you're gonna use like maybe a pond or a
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  Speaker 1: piece of polished medal or something like that. Imagine like
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  Speaker 1: going out and looking at a pond and going back
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  Speaker 1: and sitting down now as opposed to having a mirror there. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: really simplified it. It's also not coincidental that UM good
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  Speaker 1: mirrors came about at the same time that UM linear
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  Speaker 1: perspective was introduced into art. Yeah, there's a guy named
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  Speaker 1: UM Filippo Brunus Brunelleschi. Nice Chuck, thank you for doing that. UM,
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  Speaker 1: and he he, I guess discovered linear perspective because I
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  Speaker 1: think it's one of the things that was always there.
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  Speaker 1: We just stumbled upon it through mirrors. That's how we
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  Speaker 1: figured it out. Yeah, because if you look at a mirror,
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  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, linear perspective really comes into focus, right,
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  Speaker 1: you will. Well, And then scientists UM said, hey, we
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  Speaker 1: could use these to make like reflecting telescopes, and that
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  Speaker 1: was what year was at That was a long time ago.
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  Speaker 1: The first reflecting telescope was invented by a guy named
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  Speaker 1: James Bradley just off the top of my head. Very
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  Speaker 1: well then, uh, And the mirrors were also used by
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  Speaker 1: a very very famous scientist early scientists named Archimedes. Supposedly
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  Speaker 1: I wrote an article on archimedes death. Ray, Oh did
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  Speaker 1: you write that? Yeah? Did you ever read it? I
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: did back in a while ago, just out of interest?
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  Speaker 1: How about that? Thanks a lot man? Sure did you
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  Speaker 1: see in it? Um? Some I can't remember. It was
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  Speaker 1: one of the Ivy League schools. They tried to set
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  Speaker 1: things on fire with this system of mirrors, that arch
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  Speaker 1: that's who it was, and they succeeded. Yes, And the
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  Speaker 1: MythBusters claimed it was busted, like they set a small fire.
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  Speaker 1: But I think they busted it because they said it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't enough to like sink a ship. But m I
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  Speaker 1: T I mean, they caused quite a fire on that boat.
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  Speaker 1: And of course they had. I mean I saw this
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  Speaker 1: set up online today. It was pretty massive. Of Archimedes
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  Speaker 1: had that kind of technology or at least that many
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  Speaker 1: mirrors at its disposal, or maybe he did. And plus
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  Speaker 1: they had I think they used pretty good mirrors too. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: well it was legend though. They don't know if the
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  Speaker 1: Archimedes thing is true. Right, we know that he invented
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  Speaker 1: the water screw and let's saved countless lives. What's that
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: It's a way to deliver water from the ground top side.
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  Speaker 1: Oh really yeah? Cool? You have to check it out,
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  Speaker 1: smart dude. Um, so, Chuck, we now know the comprehensive
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  Speaker 1: broad strokes of the history of mirrors. Right, Yes, let's
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  Speaker 1: talk about mirror physics. We work for how stuff works
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  Speaker 1: dot com, which means we're pretty much obligated to discuss
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  Speaker 1: the physics of whatever we're talking about any time it applies, right,
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  Speaker 1: And that's true, and mirrors are definitely one of those times. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: so Chuck take it away. Well, I can cover the
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  Speaker 1: first part because it makes sense to me. The law
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  Speaker 1: of reflection um Josh says that when you bounce a
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  Speaker 1: ray of light off the surface, it bounces back off
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  Speaker 1: in a certain way, and it is um the angle
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  Speaker 1: of incidences is when it comes in the angle of reflection,
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  Speaker 1: it when it bounces off, and it matches so that
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  Speaker 1: the way they pointed out in the article, which makes
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  Speaker 1: sense to me is like at sunset, the sun is
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  Speaker 1: very low on the horizon, so it bounces off at
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  Speaker 1: a low angle, or approaches the water at a low angle,
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  Speaker 1: like at a lake, let's say, and then it bounces
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  Speaker 1: off of that lake at the same low angle, like
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  Speaker 1: right into your face. But if it seems brighter if
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  Speaker 1: the sun's overhead though, yeah, the sunlight is coming down
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  Speaker 1: under the lake and it's reflecting back up basically over
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  Speaker 1: your head. Yeah, you're looking at a horizontal angle pretty much,
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  Speaker 1: and this is happening on a vertical angle. Yeah, that's
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  Speaker 1: why you'll get like more glare at a sunrise or
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  Speaker 1: a sunset scenario. Um. And what you're saying, the angle
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  Speaker 1: of incidence equals the angle of reflection, right. Indeed, if
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  Speaker 1: you take if if a if a beam of light
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  Speaker 1: is shot at a ninety degree angle or no, let's
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  Speaker 1: say eighty degree angle, it's gonna bounce off at an
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  Speaker 1: opposite eighty degree angle. So both are at eighty degrees.
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  Speaker 1: But if you look at the whole thing, the incidents
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  Speaker 1: and the reflection, it's going to cover a hundred and
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  Speaker 1: sixty degrees right, all right. So that's the first part.
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  Speaker 1: That's that's how That explains how light reacts with the reflection,
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  Speaker 1: and that's where the smooth surface with with most things
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  Speaker 1: like say, look at my hand man, take a look
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  Speaker 1: at these hands. Um, the the the light that's bouncing
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  Speaker 1: off of them. What's giving us the ability to see
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  Speaker 1: these huge, awesome hands, Um, is that they're not huge?
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Are they are the smaller than average size? No, they're
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: they're bigger than mine. I got small hands. I wouldn't
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: see you have small hands. Let's see now those are like,
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  Speaker 1: those are totally normal. I don't have hair in the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: back of my hands either. I've got hair on my
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: first knuckles. Yeah, Robin Williams. Um, what's allowing us to
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  Speaker 1: see our hands right now and judge their size and
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  Speaker 1: scale is, um, what's called diffuse reflection, which the light
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: that's coming off of all of these light bulbs right
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: now are hitting all these different areas, these different services
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  Speaker 1: on my hands, and it's bouncing off, it's being scattered
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  Speaker 1: right the mirror the highly reflective surface. Um, what we
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  Speaker 1: have is called specular reflection, and that is where it's
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  Speaker 1: pretty close to the law of reflection, where the angles
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  Speaker 1: coming in at one or the lights coming in at
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  Speaker 1: one angle, and coming off at the same degree in
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  Speaker 1: the opposite direction, right, Um, which is why we're allowed
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  Speaker 1: to see ourselves in a piece of glass with metal
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  Speaker 1: on the back. And what this creates when you're looking
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  Speaker 1: at yourself is called the virtual image. Right. I find
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  Speaker 1: it fascinating. Yeah, me too, and it's a little brain
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  Speaker 1: melty for me, of course. But at the same time
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  Speaker 1: you realize, like, well, you've grown up around mirrors the
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  Speaker 1: whole time, and no one has any real concept of
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  Speaker 1: of how they work. Right. We just take for granted
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  Speaker 1: that they do work, but you don't really give much
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  Speaker 1: thought to how they're working, right, Like the Venus effect.
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  Speaker 1: Did you read about that? Yeah? That that's explained that
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: because this is where when we talk about or actually
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  Speaker 1: the Venus effect is two different things, and both of
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  Speaker 1: them kind of melt my brain that the left and
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  Speaker 1: right being reversed, which is not actually true, and then
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the venus effects. So let's talk about both of those. Okay, Well,
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  Speaker 1: the Venus effect is basically just shows how little we
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  Speaker 1: can grasp or how little we grasp mirrors and how
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  Speaker 1: they work. If you look at um, paintings of the
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  Speaker 1: Venus de Milo or Venus the goddess um Almost always
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: she's holding a hand mirror, and in the painting you
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  Speaker 1: can see her face in the mirror, but she's looking
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  Speaker 1: at herself in the mirror, and her face is painted
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  Speaker 1: in the mirror for the benefit of the viewer. But
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  Speaker 1: you take for granted that she's viewing herself, when in actuality,
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  Speaker 1: if you could see Venus's face in the mirror, she
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to see herself. She'd see you in
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  Speaker 1: the mirror because of that angle or the law of reflection. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and that's the only way I only understood that was
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: when I remembered, like in my film set days, when
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  Speaker 1: you shoot a person looking in a mirror, they aren't.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: They don't see themselves in the mirror clearly, because he
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: would see the camera behind them, so that the mirror
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: is angled and it looks like they're looking at themselves
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  Speaker 1: and primping, but they're not seeing themselves. Pretty cool, right,
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  Speaker 1: So that makes sense to me now, it does, doesn't it. Okay,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: the other thing you were saying is left and right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's not actually left and right. Yeah, this one was
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  Speaker 1: a little brain melty, but I think I finally got
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  Speaker 1: it too. Okay, So consider that what you're not what
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  Speaker 1: you're seeing isn't actually your reflection, but another version of
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: yourself in the mirror world. Right. If you look at
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  Speaker 1: it that way, then the mirror represents the halfway point.
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  Speaker 1: It's always halfway between you and your virtual self, right, right,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: because your virtual self, that image of yourself in the
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  Speaker 1: mirror is always twice as it's always two times away
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  Speaker 1: from you, with the mirror representing the halfway point. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So your two feet from the mirror and your virtual
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  Speaker 1: self is another two feet away from you. Right, You
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  Speaker 1: see what I'm saying. Yeah, And the left and right
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  Speaker 1: thing isn't really left and right, it's really front and
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  Speaker 1: back that are reversed. You again, think of yourself as
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  Speaker 1: the virtual image. Yes, you walk into the mirror world,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: you take you go another two feet away from where
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: you were just standing, So you're now your four feet
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: away from where you're just standing and turn around, right,
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  Speaker 1: Which is weird because it actually gives the virtual image
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  Speaker 1: something of its own identity, doesn't it does. It's a
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: little creepy. Yeah, So when you're looking at a mirror,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: you're it's not a reflection of you from the mirrors perspective.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: It's like that. The one example they gave was if
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: you wrote something on a piece of paper and then
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: held that paper up to the light and looked at
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: it from the back, it would appear backwards. But it's
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: not right. You're just behind it, yes, isn't it. Yeah,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting stuff. And I gotta say when you
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: two things, when you mentioned doing mirrors, I said to myself, really,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: And then when we told Jerry what we were doing
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: this on, she was like really, yeah, but it's I
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: think it's much more interesting than I originally thought. Well again,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: it's like the butterfly swings, you know, like we just
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: have to know that if we're gonna understand absolutely everything
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: that's going on in the world, which is our mission. Yes. Uh,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: should we talk about curved mirrors now? Yeah, because we
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: were talking about virtual images. There's actually a way to
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: project a real image where this thing isn't in the mirror.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: It's outside of the mirror, but it's not really there.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: It's a projected image, and that uses um concave mirrors.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: You might be familiar with holograms, right, is that the
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: same concept the concave mirrors? And actually, if you want
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: to see a really cool example of UM a hologram
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: produced by a set of concave and flat mirrors. Um.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: You should type in mirrage in YouTube and look for
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: the one that's a lowercase just mirrage and it's a
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: little piggy um, and it's pretty cool the demonstration that
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: this guy does. Yeah, check that out. But chuck, there's
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: concave and convex, right, Yeah. Convex is the one that
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: curves outward and uh, it reflects at a wider angle
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: near the edges in the center, so things are actually
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: smaller and you can cover more areas. So that's why
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: they'll use those. Uh, they'll stick them on like your
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: passenger mirrors, so you can see more area around your car.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: And it also notes, you know, objects or smaller than
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: they appear or closer than they appear. Objects are smaller
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: than the appear, but they are smaller than they than
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: they appear. But that's not really that doesn't matter. It's
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: whether they're like in your back seat or not. Yeah,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: and they actually Um. There are have been rumors over
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the years that department stores put convex mirrors slightly convex
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: mirrors in their changing rooms to make you like a pear, tallerant,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: thinner in the clothing that you try on. Remember that
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Seinfeld where Eline like buys that dress, They had a
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: skinny mirror, And I think Barneys are blooming deals. Yeah,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: forget about that. Yeah, I don't know. I think that's
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: probably urban legend, but who knows, um chuck. The other one,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: like we said, was concave converging. We use this for holograms.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: They also use that to light the Olympic torch. Yeah.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that either. I think that's a nod
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: to Archimedes too, probably, so you're probably a little more
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: um acquainted with convex mirrors. No concave mirrors for like
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: shaving or No, those horrible mirrors that show your like
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: hair into jail. Those are awful, they really are. Don't
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: ever look in those nonreversing mirror, which really is pretty simple.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: It's just two mirrors perpendicular to each other, right, Yeah,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: And the deal is with that they meet at the angle,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and so you technically can see a non reverse image,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: but you've got that line running down the center of you.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: They don't make like a flat, single nonreversing mirror, No,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: they don't. I think it's physically impossible. It's not like
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: they don't make it like they're not interested. It's just
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: can't be done. But what's funny is there's a guy
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: named Um John Derby who has a patent. In seven
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: when he was alive, he had a patent for a
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: nonreversing mirror. By sticking two mirrors together, I could get
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: a patent for that. I could fill out the patent
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: application for that. Could Yeah, it's like take mirror A
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: and you stick it perpendicular to mirr B right there,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: give me my patent. Well, but then John Derby's family
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: would come after you. Hopefully it ran out by now,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: and just for simpleness, Josh, two way mirrors as seen
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: in every cop shakedown movie ever made. Yes, now, this
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: is fascinating, Chuck. How does the two way mirror work? Well,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: it's really pretty easy. It's just it's the same concept
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of the mirror, but it's a very thin. It's very
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: much a lighter reflection the material they use and the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: coated side. When it faces the lit room, some of
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the light reflects and some goes into the dark room
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: behind it. So basically, like you know, you can't you
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: can see only see one way right because of the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: light mainly, so it's just like very thin reflective surface
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: where if you're not if you turn in, if you
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: turn on lights in both rooms, you'd be able to
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: see through that reflective surface. Right. Yeah, it's all about
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the lighting. And that's a movie there. There's several movie
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: mirror things that are done in like every movie, and
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: that's one of them with the Coton movie. And inevitably
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: the person getting questioned will always walk right up and
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: like be staring into the face of the person on
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the other side that they can't see. And then the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: other favorite of mine, which one of the SNL shorts aped,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: was um the classic horror movie scene where you where
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: you look in the medicine cabinet in the mirror and
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: then you open the medicine cabinet and then you close
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: it and the dude is right behind you. That's a classic.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: It is there's UM again on YouTube. I think there's
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a a montage, like a four minute montage of that
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: being used over and times. Dude and it still gets people. Yeah,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: but now that the whole spin is to do that
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: and then there's not someone there, and then they'll turn
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: around and that's where they are something just jerking the
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: audience around. That's in there too. Oh it is, huh yeah, yeah,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: it's not just people closing there, someone saying there's ones
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: where they're not standing there. Yeah. I love those movie
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: conventions that are The other one too, is it doesn't
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: even do with mirrors, but the scene where you're where
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: someone is searching for the files and then the person
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: office after dark and you know they're coming up the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: steps and they opened the door and you're like they're pinched,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: and then they open the door and the person's gone
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: and there's like a window open, right, and it's just
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: like the curtains. Hundreds and hundreds of time is still
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: done yet I'm still like, oh my gosh, here they come.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: What about Poultergeist, the great classic mirror scene of the
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: guys like picking at that little clister and ends up
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: pulling his whole face off. Yeah that's pretty creepy. Yeah, classic.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you Toby Hooper. Did he make that? Yeah? I like, oh,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: that's right, he reproduced it, right, that's right. I always
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: think he directed that. What else, Chuck, Well, there's some
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: superstitions around mirrors in folklore, um summoning bloody Mary by
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: saying her names three times in a mirror, or candy
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Man if you're a little more recent, breaking a mirror
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: supposedly bad luck because um for seven years, because they
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: believe that the soul regenerates every seven years. Yeah, that
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: explains it, doesn't it. Yeah, And that's why vampires have
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: no soul. That's why they can't see themselves in mirrors.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: And a couple of them I haven't heard of are
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: if you give birth and look in a mirror too
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: soon afterward, you will see ghostly faces peek out from
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: behind the reflection. I've never heard that one in you know,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I had heard of suiting Shiva though, Yeah, what's the
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: deal with that one? Well, if you're Jewish and somebody dies,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: part of the morning process is to cover all the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: mirrors in the house to say that in the talmud.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Shut up, Chuck. Also, we have gotten conflicting um information
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: about whether or not it is taboo among Judaism to
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: be cremated. Did you notice? Yeah? And what we and
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I'll stand behind what we found, which was that reform
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Jews will do it, but they it's still not like
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: encouraged and then but it is actually forbidden in the
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: actual Jewish text. So there, fine, is that it? I
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: think that's about it? Um? Oh New Year's Eve? Right, Yeah,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I hadn't heard this one in there. If you go
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: up to a mirror on New Year's even a candle
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: in your hand, and you say the name of a
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: dead person, probably a dead loved one, UM, in a
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: loud voice, their face should appear in the mirror. Never
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: heard that. And this is my favorite one, the ancient
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Chinese mythology. Um. You know how you see weird movement
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: in like the corner of a mirror every once in
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: a while. Have you ever noticed that? Uh? Sure, I
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: just figured it was like your mind playing tricks on you.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it is, unless you're Chinese pal then what
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: it is are the um, the mirror people, the mere Kingdom.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: There's a group of opposites who live in the Mirror Kingdom,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and they are sworn to do battle with us. Yeah,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: and if this were North mythology, we'd lose, and we
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: may lose in this case too. But they are in
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: a I guess a magical slumber. Um. But when we
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: catch a little weird, unexplained movement in the corners of mirrors. Um,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: this is these people stirring in their sleep, waiting to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: wake up and kill us all in our sleep. I'll
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: remember that next time I see something in the corner
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: of my eye. Yeah. So that's it for mirrors. Um,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: that's it. I mean, that is it? Nothing else? There
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: is literally nothing else to say about mirrors. Nope, and
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: uh if you think that there is, we defy you
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to go to house stuff works dot com and type
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: mirrors into the search bar. Pal dare you listener mails?
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Listener mail Josh, this is a little uh cool organization
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: that we want to support here And how long you've
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: been smoked free buddy? It's over four months now, crazy,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: isn't so proud? Hi chucking Josh. I travel outside the
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: city every weekend, listen to your podcast, and I always
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: share my new knowledge with friends. Needless to say, I'm
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the Friday Night smarty pants and I'd rather like it.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Why I'm writing I want to promote the New York
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: City Walk to Beat Lung Cancer. I'm one of the
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: head chair persons. At years old, I never thought I
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: would share anything, but I love my new responsibility as
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I am making a huge difference to an underdog cause,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: how could cancer be an underdog? Josh is the question.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it's pretty bad. When you
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: hear someone has lung cancer, the first thing that comes
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: to your mind is probably did he or she smoked?
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: It never fails, it is a valid question. Uh. Funding
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: for lung cancers, completely dwarfed by other cancers that are
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: nearly as fatal and is completely due to the stigma
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: of a smoker's disease get turned away by sponsors and
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: media all the time because no one wants to support
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: a disease that is so preventable. But the thing is,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: it isn't people who get LC second hand? UH, for
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: no reason at all, happens all the time. Why don't
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: people ask those with skin cancer if they wore sunscreen
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: or people who have heart attacks if they ate. Well,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: it's just silly, But looking at the numbers, it just
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't add up. Um. So here's what we're gonna do, Jess,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: since you were the chair, there's an event in New
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: York City, New York City. It's called the Walk to
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Prevent I'm sorry, the Walk to Beat Lung Cancer Lung Cancer,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: and it is October two thousand ten in Battery Park
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: and if you would like to take part in this
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: walk to beat Lung cancer, Jess would really appreciate it.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: You can go to a website www dot longevity see
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: what they did there, dot org slash NYC walk, so
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: that is l U n G E v I T
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Y dot org slash NYC walk. Or Twitter you can
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: follow this and get information at Walk number four Lung
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Cancer All one word or Facebook at Walk to Beat
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Lung Cancer and Jess would appreciate your participations. Are New
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: York City buddies that we met while we were there,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Spread the word and get out and walk. Yeah, that's awesome.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: And if you're one of those people who poo poo's
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: lung cancer or helping battle lung cancer, yeah, maybe it's
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: time you took a long look in the mirror because
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: you could be a jerk. If you have any kind
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: of organization like chucking out and give a shout out
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: to we consider those in a case by case basis.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Don't we chuck We sure you, Um, it definitely doesn't
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: help or it definitely doesn't hurt to uh grease the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: wheels if you know what I mean. And we're not
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: talking about cash prizes now, We can't legally do that,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: can't we know? You can tell us about your organization
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: in an email to send it to stuff podcast at
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the house. Stuff works dot com home page. Brought to
• 26:44
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• 26:47
  Speaker 1: are you