Question

Silver is used in making mirrors.
A. True
B. False

Answer 1

Hint: There are two most widely used metals in the process of manufacturing of mirrors. Recall the properties of metal required for the coating of the back surface of the glass. The metal should have high reflecting property.

Complete answer:
We know that in mirrors, the glass sheet is painted white on its back so that the light falling on it gets reflected. Therefore, the metal used to paint the back surface of the glass sheet must be shiny and should have high reflecting property.

Silver is used in mirror making to paint the back surface of the glass because of its high reflecting property. As we know, there are two types of mirrors: optical mirrors and household mirrors. These mirrors are distinguished by the position of the metal coating. The household mirrors are painted on the back surface of the glass while optical mirrors are painted on their front by either silver or aluminum.

We should know that the silver plating is able to reflect 95 percent of light falling onto it. Due to this property, the silver is chosen over aluminum or tin which have comparatively lower reflecting capacity. Silver coating mirrors are used in telescopes as their primary and secondary mirrors because of low emissivity.

So, the correct answer is option A.

Note: The layer of silver used to coat the back surface of the glass is very thin. Even though your household mirror is coated with silver, you cannot expect huge cash in exchange for the mirror. There are certain limitations on the use of silver coated mirrors as the silver coated mirrors can distort reflections. Therefore, some of the applications of mirrors use aluminum coated mirrors.