What If: Your reflection started making tiny mistakes?
Written by: Tanivishka Rampal, Bsc Hons Mathematics.
What if your reflection started making tiny mistakes?
Scientifically speaking, a standard mirror is a sheet of smooth glass with a thin layer of reflective metal applied behind it, coated with a darker paint. It follows basic laws of reflections. Light bounces back, and so, you simultaneously see everything happening in real time.
Until you don't anymore. You begin to notice that sometimes you catch your reflection blinking a second too late. Certainly, you are mistaken. You can only ever see your eyes open in the mirror. That's what you have been taught.
When you walk past the mirror, glancing from the corner of your eye, you notice your reflection is staring at you. By the time your brain registers what you've seen, you've already walked past. You twist on your heel and rush back, but by then, your reflection has resumed mirroring you, innocently. Eyes can be deceptive, you convince yourself.
Sometimes, you wake up thirsty in the middle of the night and sit up for a drink of water. But this time, your gaze drifts towards the mirror on your wardrobe, and you see your reflection still lying in bed. You freeze. Then, scrambling off the mattress, you switch on the lights. Your reflection follows your lead. You smile; it smiles back. You frown; it frowns back. You squint; it squints back at you.
You raise your left hand, and it raises its left hand too.
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