Why are convex mirrors used instead of concave mirrors as rear view mirrors?
1 Answer
Convex mirrors always produce images that are virtual, upright and diminished.
Explanation:
According to the spherical mirror equation,
Since
In the case of concave mirror, images of objects further from the focal point (
For convex mirrors, diminished images means that images appears smaller than the objects, which means that a larger field of vision could be obtained. This is also why a convex mirror is preferred over a planar one.
In summary, the driver needs a wide view of the road situation that are (relatively) far away, and convex mirrors are able to acheive that.