Len’s formula in Art Museum

Len’s formula in Art Museum

Do you expect to learn Physics in the Art museum?

1/f = 1/u + 1/v
Magnification = v/u
v = image distance
u = object distance

I learnt this formula in the science lesson first time during middle school, then again in the Physic class during high school. There are few conclusion we can easily derive from the above formula for convex lens / concave mirrors.

  1. If u = f, v is infinite. As a result, magnification is infinite as well.
  2. If u is between f and 2f, magnification is > 1 and flip direction image
  3. If u > 2f, magnification < 1 and flip direction image
  4. If u = 2f , magnification = 1 and flip direction image
  5. If u < f, magnification > 1 and original direction image

I thought I knew it well almost by heart but today’s visit to De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, Netherlands teach me the Physics for one more time.

Knowing is not seeing. This art installation is a body-sized concave mirror. When you do physics experiment with 10cm lens / mirrors prove that the formula doesn’t lie you but I didn’t think that the world would be so much different if the same physics rule is applied to the body-sized mirror like this. In this photo, I was very astounded when seeing objects with u < 0.5f, getting larger and they keep the original heading, while objects u > 2f appearing smaller than the actual sizes with reserve heading. Everything is in one picture!

Could we have his life-sized mirror in every school?