PURPOSE: Optical illusion with a real image of a concave mirror.
DESCRIPTION: A light bulb is hidden from the audience view. It is
mounted upside down inside a black box. A curved mirror is focused to look inside
the black box at the light bulb. The real image from the curved mirror is projected onto
the position of the empty lamp socket, as seen in the photograph. The image is
inverted and appears to sit properly on the lamp socket.
A false bulb can set onto the socket so that it can be unscrewed and removed, but the image appears to remain lit in the socket! This has a limited field of view, but a camera can be placed at the position of the observers eye so that the class can see it on the monitor.
EQUIPMENT: Real image optical illusion apparatus, as shown.
SETUP TIME: It takes about 20 minutes to correctly align the camera and the
mirror.