Whoa, idea space… where did you come from?

So Many Class Ideas to Explain Box Theatre…

Bouncing, then Projecting Idea

Light goes from outside the box to inside the box through the hole. It then bounces off the paper and into the eye. Then our eyes project the image (that our Brain interprets) back onto the screen.

Extracting, then Stamping Idea

Light shines from the sun onto whatever object is outside (like a tree), and the sun light extracts color from the object. The light with extracted color goes into the box and “stamps” the inside of box with the image. But the light stops there, and doesn’t go toward the eye. Our eyes just see the light that is stopped on the box.

Hole Dependency Idea

The image is upside-down only because the hole we’ve made is at the top of the box, which forces everything to go down and invert on the screen. If the hole were at the bottom, maybe something different would happen.

Brain Flipping Ideas

We’ve heard it’s true that our eyes and our brains flip images: So, maybe the image is actually right-side up and our Brain is being tricked into not flipping it, or flipping it when it shouldn’t. OR Maybe the image is really upside-down but our eye/brain only flips thing with direct light, not reflected light, so our Brain isn’t flipping it.

Like a Mirror Idea

The box seems be similar in some ways to a mirror reflection. However, when you look into a mirror, things only get left-right reversed (not also upside down reversed). Also against this idea is the question, how can paper act like a mirror? It’s just paper, not a mirror. Out in open space, the paper just looks white. If paper can act like a mirror, would it be possible to use a piece of paper as a rear-view mirror if you created a hole and a dark space around it? Also, is there something special about white paper, or will this work just as well with the cardboard box and no paper.

Upside Down is Already Right-Left Backwards

If you take anything and turn upside down by turning it (clock-wise or counter clock-wise), left-and-right get mixed up as well? So upside down can already imply left-right backwards… it’s doesn’t have to be “flipped twice”. One flip can cause both kinds of backwards. … Question: Could the pin hole really be “turning” the light around?

Bouncing vs. Inverted Bouncing Discussion

If a Wilson ball bounced off a wall nothing would get inverted? It would just bounce, and be the same ball. So, how can bouncing cause things to flip? There must be an “inverting kind of bounce”–This led some to wonder if this is what the word refraction means, a bounce that also inverts?

But, If that wilson ball had paint painted on words, then it would leave an imprint on the wall of the word Wilson that was imprinted left-right backwards. Is that light an inverting bounce? Is that how the image gets stamped onto the back wall… However, this wouldn’t explain upside down part, only the left right

However, if with the wilson ball imprint on the board, you were standing on the opposite side of the wall, like looking from behind the wall, then it would look correct to you.

This led us to want to construct a double sided box (maybe with a translucent paper), to see if we could see image from different perspectives.

Like a Curved Spoon idea

Being upside down reminds us of looking in the inside of spoons, where you can appear upside down. Maybe this would explain why distance seems to matter, because it seems to matter with the spoon.

Crossing Light Idea

Things are upside down because light crosses through the hole. Light from top of object goes down through the hole. Light from bottom of objects goes up through the hole. At the hole, they cross, causing the image to be upside down. This group added that they like this idea because it didn’t appeal to how our Brain works, and seemed simple.