A car driver uses a flat wing mirror to observe vehicles behind the car. Fig. 14.1 shows a simplified top-down view. A motorcycle is 8.0 m behind the wing m...

(a) From the information given, the motorcycle is:

\[ \text{distance} = 8.0 \text{ m} \] [1]

(b) A plane mirror forms the image at the same distance behind the mirror as the object is in front. The motorcycle is 8.0 m in front of the mirror, so:

\[ \text{image distance behind mirror} = 8.0 \text{ m} \] [1]

(c) A plane mirror produces an image the same size as the object. The motorcycle is 0.6 m wide, so:

\[ \text{apparent width of image} = 0.6 \text{ m} \] [1]

Note that while the image is the same physical size, it will appear smaller to the driver because it is far away (8.0 m behind the mirror, so effectively 16.0 m from the driver's eye). The question asks for the image width, not the apparent angular size.

(d) Two other characteristics of the image (any two from): [1+1]

• The image is virtual (light does not actually come from behind the mirror)
• The image is laterally inverted (left and right are swapped)
• The image is upright (same way up as the object)

(e) When the motorcycle moves to 4.0 m behind the mirror, the image forms 4.0 m behind the mirror. The distance between the motorcycle and its image is:

\[ \text{distance} = 4.0 + 4.0 = 2 \times 4.0 = 8.0 \text{ m} \] [1]

The object-to-image distance is always twice the object distance for a plane mirror.

(f) A flat wing mirror allows the driver to see vehicles approaching from behind without turning around, significantly improving safety and awareness of traffic. Even though the image is virtual, the driver's eyes can still focus on it and perceive the scene behind the car. [1]