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- Thu Feb 20, 2014 12:00 am
#32691
Passage Discussion
Paragraph One:
The first sentence introduces the central focus of the passage: why mirrors reflect objects the way that they do. In response to the question of why things appear from left to right in a mirror, physicists reply with the “field-of-site explanation”: images in a mirror are reversed around a vertical axis because that is the way people normally rotate their field of sight.
Paragraph Two:
The second paragraph presents a different explanation of what mirrors do offered by other physicists, who say that images are actually reversed from front to back. The author offers the example of a chair in a mirror, whose reflection can be visualized in the imaginary space “inside” the mirror. The author notes that this explanation is based on the false premise, treating the reflection as though it were three-dimensional.
Paragraph Three:
The front-to-back explanation, the author says, is appealing to many because we are generally more concerned with what we see (or our “mental construct” of those things), for example, than with the way we see them. While our senses usually provide reliable perceptions, though, mirrors are different; they are designed to give the appearance of three dimensions within a two-dimensional object, and they provide a rare example of something on which we seldom focus (rather, our eyes focus on the imaginary space within the mirror).
Paragraph Four:
Part of the appeal of the front-to-back explanation is that it satisfies science’s inclination to consider phenomena in a vacuum, separate from the observer (in contrast, the field-of-site explanation explains mirrors with necessary reference to what is done by the observer). The problem, says the author, with attempting to describe mirrors without reference to their observers is that the observer is an inherent part of a discusses of images and appearances.
VIEWSTAMP Analysis:
The Viewpoints expressed in this passage are those of “Physicists” who support the field-of-sight explanation, another group of “some physicists” who offer the front-to-back explanation, and the author, whose perspective appears in the final paragraph of the passage.
The Structure of the passage is as follows:
The Argument presented in the passage is made by the author, who asserts in the final paragraph that any such explanation must consider the perspective of the observer.
The author’s Main Point is to present two explanations of mirrors provided by physicists, and to assert that any complete explanation of the phenomenon must include consideration of what mirrors do and of what happens when observers look at them.
Paragraph One:
The first sentence introduces the central focus of the passage: why mirrors reflect objects the way that they do. In response to the question of why things appear from left to right in a mirror, physicists reply with the “field-of-site explanation”: images in a mirror are reversed around a vertical axis because that is the way people normally rotate their field of sight.
Paragraph Two:
The second paragraph presents a different explanation of what mirrors do offered by other physicists, who say that images are actually reversed from front to back. The author offers the example of a chair in a mirror, whose reflection can be visualized in the imaginary space “inside” the mirror. The author notes that this explanation is based on the false premise, treating the reflection as though it were three-dimensional.
Paragraph Three:
The front-to-back explanation, the author says, is appealing to many because we are generally more concerned with what we see (or our “mental construct” of those things), for example, than with the way we see them. While our senses usually provide reliable perceptions, though, mirrors are different; they are designed to give the appearance of three dimensions within a two-dimensional object, and they provide a rare example of something on which we seldom focus (rather, our eyes focus on the imaginary space within the mirror).
Paragraph Four:
Part of the appeal of the front-to-back explanation is that it satisfies science’s inclination to consider phenomena in a vacuum, separate from the observer (in contrast, the field-of-site explanation explains mirrors with necessary reference to what is done by the observer). The problem, says the author, with attempting to describe mirrors without reference to their observers is that the observer is an inherent part of a discusses of images and appearances.
VIEWSTAMP Analysis:
The Viewpoints expressed in this passage are those of “Physicists” who support the field-of-sight explanation, another group of “some physicists” who offer the front-to-back explanation, and the author, whose perspective appears in the final paragraph of the passage.
The Structure of the passage is as follows:
- Paragraph 1: Introduce the central question of why mirrors reflect things the way they do, and the field-of-sight explanation provided by some physicists.
Paragraph 2: Present other physicists’ alternative perspective on what mirrors do, referred to as the front-to-back explanation, with discussion of the appearance of a chair to exemplify the false premise based on imaginary space “within” the mirror.
Paragraph 3: Discuss the limited success of the front-to-back explanation, which is based on the false premise that space exists within a mirror, a premise that seems believable because we can generally rely on such mental constructs—point out that mirrors are the exception, designed to make two dimensional objects look three-dimensional.
Paragraph 4: Reference the fact that the front-to-back explanation is partly motivated by physicists’ desire to separate the observer from the phenomenon. Assert that questions about mirrors cannot be fully answered without considering the perspective of the observer.
The Argument presented in the passage is made by the author, who asserts in the final paragraph that any such explanation must consider the perspective of the observer.
The author’s Main Point is to present two explanations of mirrors provided by physicists, and to assert that any complete explanation of the phenomenon must include consideration of what mirrors do and of what happens when observers look at them.