Whether it is a flat mirror or a non-flat mirror (concave or convex), light rays will obey the law of reflection and will be reflected by the mirror, and the reflected rays will enter the eye to form a vision in the retina. In a plane mirror, when a parallel beam of light touches the mirror, the whole will be in a parallel pattern to change the direction of progress, the imaging and the eyes see the same image, most of the objects on the surface of the occurrence of diffuse reflection, that is to say, the light scattered in all directions, can not be imaged.
Mirror imaging is because the mirror reflects parallel rays of light in another direction, so that the person standing in this direction sees the same object as the original object from the mirror. It's made of glass and mercury and has silica as a component. Put shiny tin foil on a glass surface and pour mercury on it. Mercury is a liquid metal that dissolves the tin and turns it into a sticky, silvery-white liquid that clings to the glass plate.
However, mercury-coated mirrors were not strong enough to reflect light, were time-consuming to make, and mercury was toxic, so they were later eliminated. Nowadays, the back of the mirror is a thin layer of silver. This layer of silver is not coated, also do not need electroplating, it is by the chemical "silver mirror reaction" coated. In the ammonia solution of silver nitrate into glucose water, glucose to the invisible silver ions reduced to silver particles, deposited in the glass made of silver mirror, and then brushed with a layer of lacquer on the line. The back of the mirror shiny thing is not mercury, is silver.
In recent years, there are many mirrors in department stores is the back of the aluminum plating. Aluminum is a shiny silver-white metal, much cheaper than the expensive silver. Manufacture of aluminum mirrors, aluminum evaporation in a vacuum, aluminum vapor condensation on the glass surface, becoming a thin film of aluminum, light shining. This aluminum mirror cheap and beautiful, very promising.