Mirrors. We've all looked in one, and many of us depend on our reflections to let us know we are presentable to venture out into the world. But how much of what we see in that mirror can we really take at face value? The folks on Radiolab (93.9 FM) have a thought provoking episode detailing what a reflection means, how it can fool us, and why a reflection is not what it seems to be. Listen to the podcast before you read on:
On the podcast, we hear about the life changing realization of one man's perception of himself based on what he sees in the mirror and how different his perceptions are from those of everyone else who see only his non-mirror image self every day. Throughout a long childhood of being bullied and belittled, the poor guy one day makes a crazy discovery--all these years he has parted his hair to the right, thinking it was to the left, which is how he saw it in the mirror. The very day he changes his hair part, he is welcomed into society in a way he never dreamed could be possible for him. Because a mirror reflects light, our brains receive an image that has the completely opposite orientation of what the actual object being reflected is. Now, whether or not parting your hair to the right will make you a social pariah is another topic, perhaps best answered by psychology, but this one man's trials bring up a whole slew of fascinating points and questions.
One of these questions is: Are mirror images the same as the objects being reflected? The answer lies in the thoughts and discoveries of biologists, chemists, mathematicians, authors, and philosophers who have all tackled this idea with interest. From a scientific point of view, we can talk about the physical orientation of molecules. The idea of chirality deals with molecules whose mirror images are not identical to the original molecule. We assume a mirror image is just a reversal of orientation on a page like backwards text, or a film negative, but mirror images apply differently to molecules like the all important building blocks of life, amino acids and other proteins and sugars. Here is a good time to bring in Lewis Carol's "Alice Through the Looking Glass and What she Found There." Alice asks her ever present cat, "How would you like to live in a looking-glass house, kitty? I wonder if they'd give you milk there? Perhaps looking-glass milk isn't good to drink..." In fact, it wouldn't be good to drink at all. Lactose, the major sugar in milk, is L-chiral (left-handed orientation), meaning that if you take the mirror image of the molecule, you will find that you have something completely different, D-chiral which is in a right handed orientation and is called Beta galactosidase, which is not digestible, and is what many of us lactose intolerant people know as lactase. (Lactase milk has added lactase in it to help us digest the lactose, but the difference is that all the lactose is not replaced by lactase). Mirror milk, in essence, would be a different liquid (kliM), and would be awful and indigestible!
So what do people in other disciplines say about mirrors and their manifestations? Leave a comment about things you have heard or read about.
On the podcast, we hear about the life changing realization of one man's perception of himself based on what he sees in the mirror and how different his perceptions are from those of everyone else who see only his non-mirror image self every day. Throughout a long childhood of being bullied and belittled, the poor guy one day makes a crazy discovery--all these years he has parted his hair to the right, thinking it was to the left, which is how he saw it in the mirror. The very day he changes his hair part, he is welcomed into society in a way he never dreamed could be possible for him. Because a mirror reflects light, our brains receive an image that has the completely opposite orientation of what the actual object being reflected is. Now, whether or not parting your hair to the right will make you a social pariah is another topic, perhaps best answered by psychology, but this one man's trials bring up a whole slew of fascinating points and questions.
One of these questions is: Are mirror images the same as the objects being reflected? The answer lies in the thoughts and discoveries of biologists, chemists, mathematicians, authors, and philosophers who have all tackled this idea with interest. From a scientific point of view, we can talk about the physical orientation of molecules. The idea of chirality deals with molecules whose mirror images are not identical to the original molecule. We assume a mirror image is just a reversal of orientation on a page like backwards text, or a film negative, but mirror images apply differently to molecules like the all important building blocks of life, amino acids and other proteins and sugars. Here is a good time to bring in Lewis Carol's "Alice Through the Looking Glass and What she Found There." Alice asks her ever present cat, "How would you like to live in a looking-glass house, kitty? I wonder if they'd give you milk there? Perhaps looking-glass milk isn't good to drink..." In fact, it wouldn't be good to drink at all. Lactose, the major sugar in milk, is L-chiral (left-handed orientation), meaning that if you take the mirror image of the molecule, you will find that you have something completely different, D-chiral which is in a right handed orientation and is called Beta galactosidase, which is not digestible, and is what many of us lactose intolerant people know as lactase. (Lactase milk has added lactase in it to help us digest the lactose, but the difference is that all the lactose is not replaced by lactase). Mirror milk, in essence, would be a different liquid (kliM), and would be awful and indigestible!
So what do people in other disciplines say about mirrors and their manifestations? Leave a comment about things you have heard or read about.
