Exhibits database

2x2 Puzzle

Four cubes fit together in the box. Each cube has 4 quarter-pictures, one on each of 4 faces. The other two faces are transparent, BUT they look onto the square mirror that bisects the cube. Confused? It’s a tough puzzle! There are six pictures to put together, by combining real and reflected images. Take chocolate, take your time.

Air Mirror

Sit comfortably and check the stripy view at the end of the road. Now heat up the road. (A solid steel plate rapidly heats to 100°, warming the dark sand of the ‘road’ surface). As the air closest the ground heats up, the palm trees shimmer and the stripes begin to deform – with progressive warming they appear to bend and curve. This is a miniature, reversible and repeatable, version of the familiar mirage you see when driving on a bright summer day, when the air is very hot just above the tarmac and cooler above: the apparent wetness of the road is not a reflection of the sky in water, but refraction of sky light through the less-dense warmer air at the road surface.

Anamorphic Images: Cone

On a flat surface the images are distorted beyond recognition – a peculiar visual code requiring a special key. Slip the square sheets over the reflective cone: aha! Easier to decode are the anamorphic images that fit the shiny cylinder. A pattern is provided for you to draw a coded-image of your own, then see it appear in undistorted reflection.

Anamorphic Images: Cylinder

On a flat surface the images are distorted beyond recognition – a peculiar visual code requiring a special key. Slip the square sheets over the reflective cone: aha! Easier to decode are the anamorphic images that fit the shiny cylinder. A pattern is provided for you to draw a coded-image of your own, then see it appear in undistorted reflection.

Back View

Step forward to check how neat (or not….) your bum really looks in those cool new jeans: every clothes’ store should have this back-view booth!

Bathroom Mirror

Sit still in front of the mirror, and look carefully at your face: sketch the outline, mouth, nose and eyes, as you see them in the glass. Now look at your sketch. No points for artistic skill, but can you guess why it’s that size? (Clue: your image is as far behind the mirror as you are in front of it.)

Bucky’s Brain (by Don Doak)

Suspended in artist Don Doak’s kaleidoscope is a sphere – composed of a breathtaking 120 triangles. Coloured squiggles float on its surface; a delicate skeleton surrounds it: interactive art to play with and delight in.

Carousel of Faces

As you carefully adjust the light level, the mirror becomes a window onto a well-known face. Balance illumination with reflection, and merge your face with a more famous one: choose from Mick Jagger, Mr Bean, Jean-Paul Belmondo, or the Queen of England!

Cold and Warm Light Mirrors

Without protection, the lamp in a projector would heat those precious slide and video images to melting. How to Save Our Slides? This exhibit shows the effect of different coatings on glass plates. One coating allows the glass to transmit heat (long-wave infra-red radiation), but reflects most of the light (shorter-wave radiation). The other transmits light, but reflects heat – this is what the projector needs. See and feel the difference.

Colour Corner

Set two mirrors at 62°, cap them with a third, and mount a lightbox at their apex. This kaleidoscopic art piece is another Caspar Schwabe creation: “2% artefact, 98% illusion”, he asserts.

Cube in a Mirror

Move this wire-skeleton cube towards and away from the mirror: when does its mirror image appear biggest?

Cube to Infinity

This cube is as big as a garden hut, mirrored inside, with its corners cut out so kids can crawl in and tall people can see what’s happening inside. What’s happening is a funfair fantasy of infinite proportions: feeling lost in space?

Cubes cubed

Pull on the cord to create a translucent cube. Keep on pulling to make it grow. Inside the kaleidoscope, it expands backwards as well as forwards so it grows twice as fast as you’re pulling. Conceived by the San Francisco Exploratorium, this is a cube with a twist! Check what happens when you pull the cord to right or left: is this a Cubist curve?

Deformable Mirror

Here is whole-body morphing at the touch of a switch in a mirror the size of a door. Curvature is controlled at 15 points, offering wild effects from ‘Diagonal Warp’ through ‘Fat and Thin’ to the fish-eye ‘Corner and Centre’ effect. To grab that vital photo opportunity, ‘Hold to Freeze’: Aha and Wow exclamations guaranteed!

Dual Mirror I

James Seawright’s work is composed of 110 mirror tiles arranged into two concave surfaces. The radii of curvature are the same, but the mirrors are oriented in slightly different directions. Stand side by side with a friend: you’re only 1 metre apart, but she’s reflected in one mirror (and can see 55 images of herself), while you’re reflected x55 in the other and cannot see her reflection at all. Stretch out your hand, into the edge of your friend’s image. Ask her to reach towards you – you’ll find a hand waving near the image of your head without her body attached!

Elusive Mirror

Experimental Stations 1 to 6

On a hexagonal table is a circus of hands-on activities, all to do with reflections in every-day life: What’s in a surface? Reflections off curved surface. Everyday curved mirrors. Polarisation. Interference. Unwanted reflections.

Eyes in the Back of your Head

This apparatus allows you to check up on your hairdresser’s skill: how sharp is the cut round your neck? Pleased with the fit of your collar? Are you balding yet?

Fresnel Mirror

Ein Spiegel, der Ihr Gesicht so ausbreitet, dass Sie fast in Ihre Ohren schauen können! Stellen Sie sich auf den roten Punkt, blicken Sie genau in der Mitte in den Spiegel. Sie sind dann genau im Brennpunkt, wenn Ihr Gesicht und ihr Kopf rundum - von Ohr zu Ohr - im Streifen-Spiegel "abgewickelt" wird.

Hands-on Mirage

The laser beam brushing the surface of the hot plate is visible until you blow down through the hole. Your relatively cool breath above the hot plate makes a denser, cooler patch of air sufficient to deflect the beam upwards… and it disappears. Now try the reverse: turn on the hair drier to heat the cool plate. The laser beam travels faster through the less dense hot air, so it’s bent down onto the plate, and becomes visible.

Hinged Kaleidoscope

Slowly close the hinged door, and count the number of regular polygons traced by the red cord: triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon,... Just before the door shuts completely, the polygon you see has an almost infinite number of sides – it is almost a perfect circle.

It's About Time

In Bill Spinhoven's installation, a video camera captures visitors' position and movements, temporarily stores the data, and then projects the sequences – with pro¬grammable delay and in slow motion. The combination of these effects produces full-size mirror images that have been wiggled, twisted and contorted to the point of bodily distortion. Video-Projector/Beamer and screen not included, must be provided by venue.

Jellyfish

A group of four jellyfish and their four mirrored doppelgangers are floating in an air aquarium. Look closely to see that these lifelike jellyfish are actually shaped from glass and that plasma flickering and glowing within each glass jellyfish is responsible for their animated bright appearance.

Kaleidoscope Experiments 1 to 6

Oversized toy or mathematical puzzle? Six kaleidoscope exhibits invite experiment, and reward with crystalline 3-D images. Each is equipped with a collection of translucent plastic shapes and sticks, to reveal the geometry around 1/3, 1/4 and 1/5 of 360°. There is a very pleasing perfection in symmetry!

Mega-Kaleidoscope

Duck down and step into the man-sized kaleidoscope: three huge mirrors set in a triangle. Ask a friend to look through the spy-hole, to see you at the centre of everspreading reflections of you, you, you, you, you…

Mirror Made to Measure

How tall a mirror do you need to see yourself from head to toe? Does the height change if you’re closer or further away? (No!) Using the remote control, you can pull a blind down till the top of the mirror reflects the top of your head; and pull another blind up till the mirror’s bottom just touches your toes. Now measure your tailor-made mirror’s height. (If you’ve forgotten how tall you are, simply multiply the mirror’s height by two.)

Mirror Maze

Design a maze with Einstein’s image as it’s goal. At your disposal are five mirrors, many wall pieces, and your trial-and-error learning of the laws of incidence and reflection off plane mirrors.

Mirror Writing 1

Handedness of letters: Most letters of the Roman alphabet are asymmetrical both horizontally and vertically. But C, D and E look the same upside down, though different in a mirror. I, O and X are completely symmetrical. The little letters b and d, and p and q, swap into each other when reversed in a mirror. Handedness of numbers and text: The mirror writing ‘Polizei’ immediately identifies the emergency service in drivers’ wing mirrors, so cars can pull over and give way. The transparent clock face demonstrates the truth of Robert L Walke’s words: “A mirror does not reverse things right to left. It reverses front to back; it reverses in and out.” Experiment, and verify it for yourself.

Mirror Writing 2

Legen Sie mit den Magnetbuchstaben Wörter und Sätze, die auch im Spiegel normal lesbar sind. Sie können die Tafeln auch unter dem Spiegel hindurch schieben - dabei können Sie, anders als beim nebenstehenden Exponat "Spiegelschriften 1", auch noch eine andere Spiegelrichtung (Symmetrieachse) ausprobieren. Versuchen Sie's doch mal mit "OTTO" oder "OHA".

Nothing but air

Mit einer Dunkelfeldbeleuchtung (Schlierenoptik) werden kleinste Änderungen in der Luftdichte (Brechungsindex) sichtbar gemacht. Die Apparatur ist so gross, dass die Wärmeabstrahlung eines menschlichen Kopfes sichtbar wird. Mit einem Hohlspiegel wird das Licht einer punktförmigen Lichtquelle parallel gemacht (Fokussierung einer Lichtquelle auf eine Spalte) und mit einem zweiten Hohlspiegel mit grosser Brennweite auf einer Scheibe abgebildet. Das abzubildende Objekt liegt zwischen den beiden Hohlspiegeln und wird vom zweiten Hohlspiegel auf einem Schirm abgebildet.

Parallel Mirrors

Looking between the pair of parallel mirrors, you see repeating images stretching off to left and right. With perfect reflectance they’d continue for ever. Put the soft toy between the mirrors: you’ll see it alternately head-tail-head-tail as it’s reflected alternately from front and back. Experiment with the light stick: how many reflections from the light to the first green image? And to the first red image? Try tilting one mirror: the little points of light trace out the arc of a huge circle. Consider: if the mirrors were perfectly parallel, that circle would be infinitely large!

Pepper’s Ghost

This is one of the oldest SFX, pre-dating Star Wars and Spiderman by over 100 years. A large sheet of glass, angled from stage towards auditorium, optically combines a reflected actor – the ‘ghost’ concealed beneath the stage, out of the audience’s sight line – with other actors on stage who are seen directly through the glass. Experiment with light levels to make this ghost fade in and out of sight. Lift the side panel to expose the theatrical contrivance.

Plato’s Playground

Ein Spiegelbild vom Spiegelbild vom Spiegelb... - ergibt ein Kaleidoskop! Die drei Spiegel in dieser Röhre sind so angeordnet, dass im Inneren ein ein sogenannter Sternendodekaeder aus Spiegelbildern entsteht. Verändern Sie Muster und Lichteinfall und lassen Sie sich in die eine phantastische Spiegelwelt entführen.

Polytakis (by Caspar Schwabe)

Created by Zurich mathematician/artist Caspar Schwabe, Polytakis is designed to provoke kaleidoscope aficionados and quizzical visitors alike: pull the cord and create your very own spherical universe of stars and shiny planets.

Radar Reflector

When light strikes a rough surface it is reflected all over the place. Now polish that surface to cut out all the diffuse radiation, and you get a mirror off which a ray’s angle of reflection is precisely its angle of incidence. For rays of longer wavelength than short-wavelength visible light, the polishing need not be as fine. Use the radar emitter and receiver to test the different surfaces and find the best radar reflectors: since radar has a wavelength 60,000 times greater than light, a wire grid makes a ‘polished’ surface.

Rotating Mirrors

No mysteries with the flat 180° mirror: rotate it and your image stays straight in front of you. The two mirrors joined at a 90° corner give you the sight-corrected, or ‘tailor’s mirror’, image – you as the rest of world sees you, not right-left reversed. Rotate the mirrors and your image turns full circle, at double speed. Look into the angle where the two mirrors join, and close one eye: which eye closes in your reflection? Surprise! The two mirrors joined at 60° are at a critical angle: the image you see has been reflected three times, off the first mirror onto the second, off the second back onto the first, and off the first back towards you. That’s 60° three times over: 180°. So your image appears exactly as in the flat 180° mirror, directly behind the border where the mirrors touch: it’s reversed right-left and does not turn when you rotate the mirrors.

S-bend Mirror

Some fairground mirrors make you very short, some very tall: this one does both. As you approach the mirror, two rather squashed people merge to become an extremely elongated you!

S-bend Mirror

Some fairground mirrors make you very short, some very tall: this one does both. As you approach the mirror, two rather squashed people merge to become an extremely elongated you!

Shake Hands with Yourself

The concave mirror is shiny black: a red ball dangles invitingly, brightly lit. Set the ball swinging, then slowly reach to catch it. Your mirror-image hand reaches out to catch a mirror-image red ball…. or to shake hands with you!

Shiny Metal Sphere

Here is the fish-eye effect: the centre of the image looks correct but round the edge, where light strikes the sphere’s surface at an oblique angle, it gets more and more distorted.

Your Father's Nose...

Teilen Sie Ihr Gesicht mit jemand anderem! Zwischen den Spiegelstreifen lässt sich auf das Gesicht des Gegenübers blicken, so dass man abwechselnd die eigenen Augen, eine fremde Nase, den eigenen Mund, ein fremdes Kinn usw. "zu Gesicht" bekommt.

Zoom Mirror (by Christian Megert)

This mirror by Christian Megert is flexible. It changes its shape from convex to concave and vice versa. Seen from a distance, your mirror image is upright and mirrored in the convex form, but when the mirror slowly takes on a concave shape, the image turns upside down.