Flipping FlamesCeleste NievesAward: Top 100
School: sleepy hollow high school In a dark room, two lit tealight candles of different heights are placed on a table against a blank wall. One candle is propped up on a small cap to show the height difference. The darkness helps make the candlelight and its projection of the light rising more visible. Interestingly, because of the optical setup, the image of the candle appears inverted, with the flame pointing downward. To achieve this, I used a concave makeup mirror, positioning it so the candles were between the center of curvature and the focal point. The mirror itself was kept out of the camera's view. A concave mirror is a converging mirror, meaning parallel light rays reflect and meet at a point called the focal point. In this case, the light from the candle flames reflected off the mirror and focused to form a real, inverted, magnified image on the wall. If the candle were placed beyond the center of curvature, the mirror would produce a real, inverted, and reduced image. If the candle were at the focal point, the light rays would reflect parallel, and no clear image would form. If it were placed closer than the focal point, the mirror would create a virtual, upright, magnified image. By adjusting the distance, I observed these image changes, confirming that my setup created a real, inverted, magnified image because the candles were between the focal point and the center of curvature. 
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