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A mirror is an object that reflects light in such a way that, for incident light in some range of wavelengths, the reflected light preserves many or most of the detailed physical characteristics of the original light. This is different from other light-reflecting objects that do not preserve much of the original wave signal other than color and diffuse reflected light. The most familiar type of mirror is the plane mirror, which has a flat screen surface. Curved mirrors are also used, to produce magnified or diminished images or focus light or simply distort the reflected image. Mirrors are commonly used for personal grooming or admiring oneself (in which case the archaic term looking-glass is sometimes still used), decoration, and architecture. Mirrors are also used in scientific apparatus such as telescopes and lasers, cameras, and industrial machinery. Most mirrors are designed for visible light; however, mirrors designed for other wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation are also used. == History == The first mirrors used by people were most likely pools of dark, still water, or water collected in a primitive vessel of some sort. The earliest manufactured mirrors were pieces of polished stone such as obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic glass. Examples of obsidian mirrors found in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) have been dated to around 6000 BC.〔 Polished stone mirrors from Central and South America date from around 2000 BC onwards.〔(History of Mirrors Dating Back 8000 Years ), Jay M. Enoch, School of Optometry, University of California at Berkeley〕 Mirrors of polished copper were crafted in Mesopotamia from 4000 BC,〔 and in ancient Egypt from around 3000 BC.〔(The National Museum of Science and Technology, Stockholm ) 〕 In China, bronze mirrors were manufactured from around 2000 BC,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Chinavoc.com )〕 some of the earliest bronze and copper examples being produced by the Qijia culture. Mirrors made of other metal mixtures (alloys) such as copper and tin speculum metal may have also been produced in China and India.〔(Google Books Search ), by Joseph Needham, Gwei-djen Lu, Science and civilisation in China, Volume 5, page 238〕 Mirrors of speculum metal or any precious metal were hard to produce and were only owned by the wealthy.〔(Books Search ), Albert Allis, The Scientific American cyclopedia of formulas, page 89〕 Metal-coated glass mirrors are said to have been invented in Sidon (modern-day Lebanon) in the first century AD,〔(Mirrors in Egypt ), Digital Egypt for Universities〕 and glass mirrors backed with gold leaf are mentioned by the Roman author Pliny in his ''Natural History'', written in about 77 AD.〔(Wondrous Glass: Images and Allegories ), Kelsey Museum of Archaeology〕 The Romans also developed a technique for creating crude mirrors by coating blown glass with molten lead.〔(The Book of the Mirror ), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, edited by Miranda Anderson〕 Parabolic mirrors were described and studied in classical antiquity by the mathematician Diocles in his work ''On Burning Mirrors''.〔pp. 162–164, ''Apollonius of Perga's Conica: text, context, subtext'', Michael N. Fried and Sabetai Unguru, Brill, 2001, ISBN 90-04-11977-9.〕 Ptolemy conducted a number of experiments with curved polished iron mirrors,〔p. 64, ''Mirror Mirror: A History of the Human Love Affair With Reflection'', Mark Pendergrast, Basic Books, 2004, ISBN 0-465-05471-4〕 and discussed plane, convex spherical, and concave spherical mirrors in his ''Optics''. Parabolic mirrors were also described by the physicist Ibn Sahl in the 10th century, and Ibn al-Haytham discussed concave and convex mirrors in both cylindrical and spherical geometries,〔R. S. Elliott (1966). ''Electromagnetics'', Chapter 1. McGraw-Hill.〕 carried out a number of experiments with mirrors, and solved the problem of finding the point on a convex mirror at which a ray coming from one point is reflected to another point.〔Dr. Mahmoud Al Deek. "Ibn Al-Haitham: Master of Optics, Mathematics, Physics and Medicine", ''Al Shindagah'', November–December 2004.〕 By the 11th century, clear glass mirrors were being produced in Moorish Spain. In China, people began making mirrors with the use of silver-mercury amalgams as early as 500 AD.〔Archaeominerology By George Rapp – Springer Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009 page 180〕 Some time during the early Renaissance, European manufacturers perfected a superior method of coating glass with a tin-mercury amalgam. The exact date and location of the discovery is unknown, but in the 16th century, Venice, a city famed for its glass-making expertise, became a centre of mirror production using this new technique. Glass mirrors from this period were extremely expensive luxuries.〔(The Tin-Mercury Mirror: Its Manufacturing Technique and Deterioration Processes ), Per Hadsund, Studies in Conservation, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Feb., 1993)〕 The Saint-Gobain factory, founded by royal initiative in France, was an important manufacturer, and Bohemian and German glass, often rather cheaper, was also important. The invention of the silvered-glass mirror is credited to German chemist Justus von Liebig in 1835. His process involved the deposition of a thin layer of metallic silver onto glass through the chemical reduction of silver nitrate. This silvering process was adapted for mass manufacturing and led to the greater availability of affordable mirrors. Nowadays, mirrors are often produced by the wet deposition of silver (or sometimes aluminum via vacuum deposition)〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Welcome to )〕 directly onto the glass substrate. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「mirror」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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