A lady is standing in front of a plane mirror at a distance of 1 m fro

A lady is standing in front of a plane mirror at a distance of 1 m from it. She walks 60 cm towards the mirror. The distance of her image now from herself (ignoring the thickness of the mirror) is

40 cm
60 cm
80 cm
120 cm
This question was previously asked in
UPSC NDA-1 – 2016
In a plane mirror, the image formed is virtual, erect, and located at the same distance behind the mirror as the object is in front of the mirror.
Initially, the lady is at a distance of 1 m (100 cm) from the mirror. Her image is formed 100 cm behind the mirror. The distance between the lady and her image is 100 cm (lady to mirror) + 100 cm (mirror to image) = 200 cm.
The lady walks 60 cm towards the mirror. Her new distance from the mirror is 100 cm – 60 cm = 40 cm.
Her new image is formed 40 cm behind the mirror.
The new distance between the lady and her image is her distance from the mirror + her image’s distance from the mirror = 40 cm + 40 cm = 80 cm.
– Plane mirror property: Object distance from mirror = Image distance from mirror.
– Image is behind the mirror.
– Distance between object and image is (object distance) + (image distance) = 2 * (object distance).
The image in a plane mirror is laterally inverted (left-right reversal). The magnification is +1 (image is same size as object and erect). The concept of image distance behind the mirror being equal to object distance in front is key to solving this problem.
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