Mirror, mirror...
Keith Brofsky/Getty Images
February 4, 2020
Mirrors, sequins and glitter: what makes them shine?
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Have you ever entered the mirror-verse and heard yourself talking back? Well, that’s what happens in today’s episode.
We take a look (pun intended) at how mirrors work and talk to a scientist to find out what color they are. And in a history of sequins, we learn why, for a long time, rain was a disaster for glittery gowns. Not only can you make today’s Mystery Sound, but you can use it to spiff up your crafts.
All that, plus a Moment of Um about why words start sounding funny funny funny funny funny when you repeat them.
Audio Transcript
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SPEAKER: You're listening to Brains On, where we're serious about being curious.
Brains On is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK, Molly, you can do this. I can do this. Explaining how mirrors work, I mean, I'm looking at one right now, so they definitely work. But it seems so complicated. Maybe we should just do a different topic altogether.
MIRROR MOLLY: No, Molly. Don't give up on mirrors.
MOLLY BLOOM: Wait, did my reflection just talk?
MIRROR MOLLY: Yes, Molly. I've been here all this time, since you were little, watching, waiting.
MOLLY BLOOM: What?
MIRROR MOLLY: Every time you look in the mirror, I've been here. I'm you, and I'm not. I'm Mirror Molly.
MOLLY BLOOM: Does that make me regular Molly?
MIRROR MOLLY: All of us here in the mirrorverse are counting on you. Tell the world about us.
MOLLY BLOOM: But I just--
MIRROR MOLLY: I will help you. I know a lot about mirrors.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK.
MIRROR MOLLY: Just look into my eyes.
MOLLY BLOOM: I'm looking.
MIRROR MOLLY: Keep looking. Empty your mind and become your reflection. Good. Good.
SPEAKER: Hey, Molly? Ready for the taping? Zora Piper's here.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, what? Right. I'm coming.
MIRROR MOLLY: See you soon.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: You're listening to Brains On from American Public Media. I'm Molly Bloom, and today my co-host is Zora Piper from Berlin. Hi, Zora Piper.
ZORA PIPER: Hi, Molly.
MOLLY BLOOM: Now, Zora, this episode was inspired by a question you sent to us. Can you tell us what it was?
ZORA PIPER: What color is a mirror?
MOLLY BLOOM: That is a very fascinating question. What made you think of it?
ZORA PIPER: So, I thought of this question when we had an exhibition in a school with a box. It said, "Open to see the world's biggest treasure." And when you opened it, inside, the walls were made of mirrors. And that kind of got me thinking, what happened when you closed the box? How it looked inside?
MOLLY BLOOM: Whoa, that's really cool. That's so awesome. So, what color do you think a mirror is?
ZORA PIPER: Well, I heard that mirrors reflect all light the same, except for green. So maybe green. But it also looks silver sometimes.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mm-hmm. So-- and about that box, what do you think it looks like when you close the box?
MIRROR MOLLY: Well, I'd say it's dark. But if you put a flashlight inside, well, then maybe all the walls would just glow because it would reflect off.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mm. That is a really cool thought experiment. So before we get into what color a mirror is, we need to answer these questions.
DANIEL: Hi, my name is Daniel, and I'm from Evanston. And my question is, why is it that when two mirrors are facing each other and you look into one of them, you see infinite mirrors?
RAMONA: Hi my name is Ramona. I'm from Portland, Maine.
EVAN: My name is Evan.
LILLIAN: Hello my name is Lillian.
AVERY: Hi, I'm Avery, and I live in Eastern Pennsylvania.
CLAIRE: Hi, my name is Claire, and my question is, why do mirrors reflect? How do mirrors reflect your reflection? How do mirrors work?
ELLIOT: Hi, I'm Elliot from Bemidji, Minnesota. I'm wondering why TVs and windows reflect people and objects. I thought only mirrors did that.
ZORA PIPER: Yeah, why can we see reflections in a shiny car or a pond?
MOLLY BLOOM: But not in a wall or a wooden door?
ZORA PIPER: But definitely in a mirror, like this one. Tada!
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, you brought a mirror into the studio. I wasn't expecting--
MIRROR MOLLY: Hi, Molly. Hi, Zora Piper.
ZORA PIPER: What in the?
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, Zora Piper, this is Mira Molly.
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: And I am Mira Zora Piper.
ZORA PIPER: Double what in the?
MIRROR MOLLY: We know this is a tricky subject, and we don't want you to mess it up. Because when you look bad, it reflects poorly on us.
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: Also, we love attention. First, we need to start with light.
MOLLY BLOOM: I was going to say that.
MIRROR MOLLY: You see, light is a kind of energy. When light hits something, three things can happen. It will either pass right through it, get absorbed by it, or bounce back.
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: We're able to see stuff because of the light that bounces back.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. Those light rays bounce off stuff and enter our eyes, creating a picture of the things around us.
MIRROR MOLLY: Exactly. When something is bumpy, like fabric or wood, light bounces off of it in all sorts of directions. It scatters all about.
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: That kind of reflection is called diffuse.
MIRROR MOLLY: But when there's a very extremely smooth surface, light will bounce off that surface in a more orderly way.
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: That kind of reflection is called specular.
MIRROR MOLLY: And that's what you see when you look in a mirror. The light that bounces off you goes to the mirror and bounces right back at you.
ZORA PIPER: OK, thanks. That's very useful. But why can you see your reflection in the window when it's dark outside, but not when the sun is up?
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: Oh, excellent question, Zora Piper. You've come so far from that three-year-old drawing freckles on your face with permanent marker.
ZORA PIPER: How did you know? Oh, right. I use the mirror.
GLASS MOLLY: I'll take this one.
MIRROR MOLLY: Oh, Glass Molly, so glad you're here.
MOLLY BLOOM: There's more of you? I mean, me. I mean--
GLASS MOLLY: I'm the Molly you see reflected in windows and such. Glass will always reflect back some light. But when the sun is out, that light is so bright that you can't see the reflection on the glass. But when the sun goes down, you can see that the light is always there being reflected by the glass, and you can see me, Glass Molly.
POND MOLLY: And then there's me.
GLASS MOLLY: Oh, thank goodness, Pond Molly. I thought you weren't going to make it.
MOLLY BLOOM: Pond Molly?
POND MOLLY: I wouldn't miss this. I just wanted to make a splash with my dramatic entrance.
GLASS MOLLY: Of course you did.
POND MOLLY: You can also see your reflection in still, flat water, like a pond, because it's smooth. But the littlest sway or movement in the water can make the reflection blurrier.
GLASS MOLLY: Like when I flick the water like this.
POND MOLLY: Hey! Don't do that.
ZORA PIPER: There's a weird tension between Glass Molly and Pond Molly.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. I should probably bring this up in therapy. Well, thank you all so much for your time today. It's been very educational and a little terrifying.
MIRROR MOLLY: You're welcome.
MOLLY BLOOM: Zora Piper, can you put the mirror away now, OK?
ZORA PIPER: Gotcha.
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: You can put us away now, but we'll be back.
MIRROR MOLLY: Can't wait to help you look for gray hairs tonight.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK, well, I think it's time to talk to an expert that doesn't live inside a mirror.
ZORA PIPER: But there's probably a version of him that lives inside a mirror too.
MOLLY BLOOM: Anyway, we have Javier Hernandez Andres here to help us answer Zora Piper's question. He's a color scientist at the University of Granada in Spain.
ZORA PIPER: Welcome, Javier. You
JAVIER HERNANDEZ ANDRES: Thank you very much.
ZORA PIPER: So we asked you to be with us today so you could answer my question, what color is a mirror? But maybe we should first start off with what they're actually made of.
JAVIER HERNANDEZ ANDRES: To be simple in the answer, I would say that mirror is made of a layer of metal, like silver or aluminum. And then it has a thick, I would say, 1 centimeter or even less layer of glass, like the glass on your window.
ZORA PIPER: OK. And are there different types of mirror? Like are the mirrors that hang in my bedroom and the ones that are in telescopes or lasers different, or are they the same?
JAVIER HERNANDEZ ANDRES: So we use what we call as one surface mirror, which means there is no glass on top of it. But of course, if you use this kind of mirrors at home, then you can spoil them by crushing with your finger. So at home, you have a glass on top of it just to protect the metal layer. But in laboratories, in telescopes, they don't have this protection glass layer.
ZORA PIPER: Do you know if a mirror has a color?
JAVIER HERNANDEZ ANDRES: If you ask me what is the color of a mirror, I would answer, what is the color of the spoon that you use for eating soup? And you probably will say to me, gray. But this is because we are now focusing in the answer on the material. Of course, there is a difference between the spoon and the mirror because the spoon is not totally polished. A mirror is polished in order to produce a very sharp image.
But, yes, the answer will be the same. Because in this comparison, a mirror is like the spoon behind a window. So the window does not change the color of the spoon, right? So I would say, yes, the color of the mirror is like gray. Can I add something that probably is going to shock you a little bit?
ZORA PIPER: Sure, go ahead.
JAVIER HERNANDEZ ANDRES: I teach color science, and the first lesson that we teach to our students is that objects, things, don't have color. Color is just a perception that is produced thanks to our eyes, our retinas that it is produced our brain. So the color perception, or the color of an object, is quite different from one person to the other. In fact, the typical example is how animals see color in a very different way.
So, I wouldn't say that a piece of paper is white per se. It depends on the illumination. If you illuminate not with the typical white light coming from the sun or the white light that we have normally at home, if you illuminate with a red laser, this piece of paper will be perceived by you as red, not white. So it's a perception. And normally, when I teach that to students, they are shocked for a while.
ZORA PIPER: Well, I think anyone would be after discovering that news. Javier, thank you for being here with us today. I think we really appreciated your answers.
JAVIER HERNANDEZ ANDRES: It has been a pleasure, real pleasure.
SPEAKER: B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-Brains On.
MOLLY BLOOM: Here's another shiny thing. It's time for the--
SPEAKER: Mystery sound.
MOLLY BLOOM: Here it is.
[JINGLING]
What is your guess?
ZORA PIPER: Well, it sounds kind of like a sewing machine. And then maybe there's that little glass thing that's like putting away pins or getting them.
MOLLY BLOOM: I like that. Do you-- have you used a sewing machine?
ZORA PIPER: Yeah, I got one for Christmas three years ago, and me and my grandma always sew together when I visit her.
MOLLY BLOOM: That is super cool. What kind of stuff do you make?
ZORA PIPER: Well, we've made a few clothes. But mostly, we make like cuddly toys or projects out of a book, like banners or animals or stuffed houses.
MOLLY BLOOM: Really? Awesome. Well, we'll be back and hear it again and give you another chance to guess in just a little bit.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let's take a minute and think of all the stuff plants give us.
SPEAKER: Oxygen
MOLLY BLOOM: Fruit.
SPEAKER: Shade.
MOLLY BLOOM: Flowers.
SPEAKER: Veggies.
MOLLY BLOOM: Scenery.
SPEAKER: Homes for squirrels.
MOLLY BLOOM: And oh, so much more. Plants are pretty much the best. In fact, we think they should run for office. We're doing an episode on how awesome plants are, and we want to hear from you. Tell us, what slogan should plants use if they ran for president? So something like, "Plants: they're unbeleafable." So Zora Piper, do you have any ideas for what slogan you would want plants to use?
ZORA PIPER: "If you care about air, vote Botanicals for mayor." This message was approved by Squirrel Realtors at Sunburnt Humans.
[LAUGHING]
MOLLY BLOOM: That's so good. Record yourself reading your slogan for plants, and you could hear it on our show. Send it to us at brainson.org/contact. You can also send questions, mystery sounds, drawings, and ideas to that same address.
ZORA PIPER: BrainsOn.org/contact.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's what this listener did.
AMELIA: Hello, my name is Amelia, and I am from Wales. My question is, why do words sound funny when you keep repeating them?
ZORA PIPER: We'll be back with an answer during our moment of um at the end of the show.
MOLLY BLOOM: And we'll read the most recent list of names to be added to the Brain's Honor Roll.
ZORA PIPER: So keep listening.
You're listening to Brains On. I'm Zora Piper.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I'm Molly. Today, we're talking mirrors. And you know what's kind of like a tiny colored mirror but also you can wear it?
ZORA PIPER: Sequins?
MOLLY BLOOM: You got it. So Zora Piper, how would you describe what a sequin looks like?
ZORA PIPER: I would describe a sequin like a tiny mini donut, except with a smaller hole than usual. It also kind of makes you look like an alien if you look at your reflection at one. It gives you a really big forehead and makes the rest of your face look smaller.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's a really good description. Yeah, so they're like small, shiny disks. They come in all kinds of colors. And the big rage these days are those sequins that have a different color on each side. So you can flip them and create different patterns when you do. And we recently heard from a listener very, very curious about these shiny things.
MADISON: Hi, I'm Madison from Lynbrook, New York. My questions are: what are sequins made of and-- are made of, and how are they made?
MOLLY BLOOM: That is some serious sequin curiosity.
ZORA PIPER: Producer Tracy Mumford is here to tell us how these fun, shiny embellishments came to be.
TRACY MUMFORD: Sequins, they're flashy, they're shiny, they're fashion, and they're older than your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother. When you put on sequins, you're actually taking your fashion cues from over 3,000 years ago. That's before even the English language as we know it existed.
For thousands of years, people from India to Europe to Peru stitched flashy metal disks onto their clothing, head dresses, jackets, bonnets. People wore these metal disks on their clothes because it meant showing off your money, literally. The word for sequin is linked to a couple of different words for coin. As in, people were stitching their coins to their outfits. They always had their money with them and everyone could see it. One of the oldest examples we have of sequins comes from King Tut. The ancient Egyptian pharaoh had clothes in his tomb with real gold disks stitched to them.
Sequins changed over the centuries from actual gold money to different kinds of metal disks. Wealthy men and women in Europe in the 1600s and 1700s wore them to add sparkle to their outfits. Some dresses or jackets had thousands and thousands of sequins, each hand stitched on one by one. And you know what's heavy? A dress covered in thousands of metal sequins. You can't dance in that, and most people can't afford it.
But about 100 years ago, things started to change dramatically. In the 1920s, archeologists cracked open King Tut's tomb.
SPEAKER: Ooh!
TRACY MUMFORD: Word spread about the ancient fashions in there. And suddenly, what was very old was new again. Everybody wanted sequins. But not everyone could just stitch on some heavy metal or gold coins.
SPEAKER: How on earth can we do that?
TRACY MUMFORD: Fashion scientists came up with a brilliant and a little strange idea. Michael Birch Pierce, an artist, embroiderer, and sequin collector, talked me through it.
MICHAEL BIRCH PIERCE: Some of the first sequins then were sequins that were punched out of thin sheets of gelatin. Gelatin, which Jell-O is made out of, actually, we eat gelatin. But people were using it to make sequins on clothes in the 1920s and 30s.
TRACY MUMFORD: That's right, gelatin sequins. Out with the metal, in with the Jell-O. That was the new, brave, out-of-the-box sequin idea. Can you imagine, like, what about a pudding dress? No. OK. All right, that's too far. But these fancy new gelatin sequins, they were shiny. They were lightweight. They were used to make beautiful, fancy dresses for people to go out and dance in. But there was a small problem.
MICHAEL BIRCH PIERCE: Gelatin melts when it gets wet or if it gets too hot. So if you got caught in a rainstorm, your dress would melt off of you, all your sequins would fall apart.
TRACY MUMFORD: You could go from shiny star to soggy Jell-O mess in just one rainstorm. Or picture this. You're at the dance. You're boogying up a storm. Everybody's sweaty. And someone puts a hand on your back. Their hand could literally melt your sequins. There are vintage dresses from this time with ghost handprints melted into them. So with gelatin sequins, no water, no heat, or else.
MICHAEL BIRCH PIERCE: They weren't really ideal. I actually have some gelatin sequins in my studio right now. And I just poured some water on it-- on a few of them, and they just are-- they're gooey and falling apart completely. It's really fun to play with, but then it kind of feels like Jell-O now.
TRACY MUMFORD: So that whole gelatin sequin trend didn't really last. A cheaper, simpler, less likely to fall apart in the rain solution came along within just a few years-- plastic. That's what most sequins you see shimmering today are made out of. And some companies are even working to use recycled plastic for sequins to cut down on waste.
What will sequins be made of in the future? How will the future sparkle and shine? Will we ever have pudding dresses? We have to wait and see.
MOLLY BLOOM: That is very fascinating. Zora Piper, do you have any sequins on any of your clothes?
ZORA PIPER: Well, I don't own anything with sequins on it right now. But I had this shirt for Halloween with a black cat that turned into a skeleton cat when you reversed it.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, so those cool flippy sequins that have stuff on both sides?
ZORA PIPER: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: Those are very awesome. So what is your favorite thing about sequins?
ZORA PIPER: My favorite thing about sequins is that when the light hits them, they reflect onto the wall, kind of like a disco ball.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. And they're kind of-- their reflection is actually a different color based on what color the sequins are, which is super cool. So, Zora Piper, are you ready to go back to that mystery sound again?
ZORA PIPER: Yes.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. Let's hear it one more time.
[JINGLING]
Do you have any new thoughts?
ZORA PIPER: I think I'm going to stick with my sewing machine guess, but I did definitely hear something glass in it. Something glass being put down.
MOLLY BLOOM: Very good ears. Right here is the answer.
SANDEN TOTTEN: Hey, this is Sanden, and the sound you just heard was me shaking salt from a salt shaker. I played you the sound because we're going to be using some salt today to make DIY-- that stands for do-it-yourself-- glitter.
MOLLY BLOOM: He's very excited about the glitter. So the glass you heard-- you did hear glass-- was the salt shaker. But that sound was not a sewing machine. It was salt coming out of the salt shaker.
ZORA PIPER: Yeah, I wouldn't have guessed that.
MOLLY BLOOM: I know. It's tricky. So regular glitter, the kind you see in stores, is actually made of tiny bits of plastic. We call it microplastic. And it often ends up going down drains and out into the ocean where fish might accidentally eat it, or it can get into soil or inside other animals. And since plastic doesn't break down, it can build up in our environment and create a lot of problems.
So Sanden is going to teach us how to make a colorful, Earth-friendly version of glitter using salt.
SANDEN TOTTEN: All right, so I got three dishes in front of me and I'm going to put a little bit of salt, table salt, in each one. The next kind of salt I'm going to use is called epsom salt, a.k.a. magnesium sulfate. Now, this is like-- it's a kind of salt people often use in baths. They pour a little bit of salt in the bath and the hot water helps their muscles. Well, epsom salt looks like table salt, but it's a little bit bigger, a little more crystal looking, a little bit more sparkly. So let's add some of that to our dishes.
And now, the dishes look like they've got these little shiny crystals in them, these tiny crystals. But they're still completely clear. They're salt colored. So then we add a little bit of food coloring. So I want to make a purple glitter. So I'm going to add a little bit of blue and a little bit of red. Now mix it up and see how this goes. Oh yeah, that's purple.
And then in dish number two, I want to make an orange. So one drop of red and a drop of yellow. And in my last dish, I just want some green. So I'm just going to add one drop of green in here. You just got to let the glitter dry a little bit. And then once it's ready, you just put a little bit of glue on paper, sprinkle a little bit of this magic glitter dust, and voila! You're getting crafty. All right, that's it. Have fun. Bye.
MOLLY BLOOM: So Zora Piper, have you ever made your own glitter before?
ZORA PIPER: I cannot say I have. Though I have my friend made edible glitter once. So you just-- it's quite safe. You just take sugar and add food coloring and put it in the oven. And then apparently, that turns to glitter too.
MOLLY BLOOM: So you can use it to decorate cakes and stuff?
ZORA PIPER: Yeah. She put it on cupcakes.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mm. That is good. I love it. Two different kinds of glitter that are friendly for the Earth.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ZORA PIPER: Everything you see is reflecting light.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mirrors are so smooth that they bounce light back in a very orderly way.
ZORA PIPER: And that's why you can see yourself in a mirror.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mirrors are usually made of highly polished silver or aluminum. So the color of a mirror would be the same as those metals. But the color of the mirror could also be seen as the color of whatever it's reflecting.
ZORA PIPER: Sequins are like tiny mirrors made out of smooth plastic, but they weren't always that way.
MOLLY BLOOM: Since glitter and mirrors are made of plastic, they'll never go away. But there are some fun alternatives like homemade glitter. That's it for this episode of Brains On.
ZORA PIPER: Brains On is produced by Menaka Wilhelm, Marc Sanchez, Sanden Totten, and Molly Bloom.
MOLLY BLOOM: We had production help from Ruby Guthrie, Tracy Mumford, Josh Meltzer, and Christina Lopez. We had engineering help from Michael Osborne, Eric Stromstead, and Christine Ilmer. Many Thanks to Jen [INAUDIBLE], Susan [INAUDIBLE], Liana Eaton, Michael Birch Pearce, and the work of Emily Spivack in Smithsonian Magazine.
ZORA PIPER: Brains On is a nonprofit public radio podcast.
MOLLY BLOOM: You can help us keep making new episodes by making a gift at brainson.org/donate.
ZORA PIPER: Now, before we go, it's time for a Moment of Um.
SPEAKER: Uh.
Uh.
Um.
Um.
Um.
Um.
Um.
INTERVIEWER: My question is, why do words sound funny when you keep repeating them?
SHOHINI BHATTASALI: Words consist of different sounds, and our brain map these sounds to different meanings and concepts. So for example, when you hear the word "book", it maps it onto the idea of a book.
Hi, I'm Shohini Bhattasali. I'm a postdoctoral researcher in linguistics at the University of Maryland. So I study how our brains help us understand language. So when you keep repeating the word "book" continuously, you actually end up focusing on the sounds of the words itself, like "buh," 'ooh," "kuh." And those sounds itself have nothing really to do with the meaning of book, "buh," 'ooh," "kuh."
So after a while, what happens is that you kind of lose the meaning and it kind of ends up sounding funny to you, "buh," 'ooh," "kuh." So some people have said that this has to do with your brain kind of getting tired. It's a kind of fatigue. Because if you keep repeating the word, instead of continuously doing that linking, you just end up focusing on the sounds themselves.
SPEAKER: Um.
Um.
Um.
MOLLY BLOOM: This list of names is always worth repeating. It's the Brain Honor Roll. These are the wonderful listeners who keep this show going by sharing their questions, ideas, mystery sounds, and drawings with us.
[LISTING HONOR ROLL]
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
We'll be back soon with more answers to your questions.
Thanks for listening.
See you in the mirror.
Brains On is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK, Molly, you can do this. I can do this. Explaining how mirrors work, I mean, I'm looking at one right now, so they definitely work. But it seems so complicated. Maybe we should just do a different topic altogether.
MIRROR MOLLY: No, Molly. Don't give up on mirrors.
MOLLY BLOOM: Wait, did my reflection just talk?
MIRROR MOLLY: Yes, Molly. I've been here all this time, since you were little, watching, waiting.
MOLLY BLOOM: What?
MIRROR MOLLY: Every time you look in the mirror, I've been here. I'm you, and I'm not. I'm Mirror Molly.
MOLLY BLOOM: Does that make me regular Molly?
MIRROR MOLLY: All of us here in the mirrorverse are counting on you. Tell the world about us.
MOLLY BLOOM: But I just--
MIRROR MOLLY: I will help you. I know a lot about mirrors.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK.
MIRROR MOLLY: Just look into my eyes.
MOLLY BLOOM: I'm looking.
MIRROR MOLLY: Keep looking. Empty your mind and become your reflection. Good. Good.
SPEAKER: Hey, Molly? Ready for the taping? Zora Piper's here.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, what? Right. I'm coming.
MIRROR MOLLY: See you soon.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: You're listening to Brains On from American Public Media. I'm Molly Bloom, and today my co-host is Zora Piper from Berlin. Hi, Zora Piper.
ZORA PIPER: Hi, Molly.
MOLLY BLOOM: Now, Zora, this episode was inspired by a question you sent to us. Can you tell us what it was?
ZORA PIPER: What color is a mirror?
MOLLY BLOOM: That is a very fascinating question. What made you think of it?
ZORA PIPER: So, I thought of this question when we had an exhibition in a school with a box. It said, "Open to see the world's biggest treasure." And when you opened it, inside, the walls were made of mirrors. And that kind of got me thinking, what happened when you closed the box? How it looked inside?
MOLLY BLOOM: Whoa, that's really cool. That's so awesome. So, what color do you think a mirror is?
ZORA PIPER: Well, I heard that mirrors reflect all light the same, except for green. So maybe green. But it also looks silver sometimes.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mm-hmm. So-- and about that box, what do you think it looks like when you close the box?
MIRROR MOLLY: Well, I'd say it's dark. But if you put a flashlight inside, well, then maybe all the walls would just glow because it would reflect off.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mm. That is a really cool thought experiment. So before we get into what color a mirror is, we need to answer these questions.
DANIEL: Hi, my name is Daniel, and I'm from Evanston. And my question is, why is it that when two mirrors are facing each other and you look into one of them, you see infinite mirrors?
RAMONA: Hi my name is Ramona. I'm from Portland, Maine.
EVAN: My name is Evan.
LILLIAN: Hello my name is Lillian.
AVERY: Hi, I'm Avery, and I live in Eastern Pennsylvania.
CLAIRE: Hi, my name is Claire, and my question is, why do mirrors reflect? How do mirrors reflect your reflection? How do mirrors work?
ELLIOT: Hi, I'm Elliot from Bemidji, Minnesota. I'm wondering why TVs and windows reflect people and objects. I thought only mirrors did that.
ZORA PIPER: Yeah, why can we see reflections in a shiny car or a pond?
MOLLY BLOOM: But not in a wall or a wooden door?
ZORA PIPER: But definitely in a mirror, like this one. Tada!
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, you brought a mirror into the studio. I wasn't expecting--
MIRROR MOLLY: Hi, Molly. Hi, Zora Piper.
ZORA PIPER: What in the?
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, Zora Piper, this is Mira Molly.
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: And I am Mira Zora Piper.
ZORA PIPER: Double what in the?
MIRROR MOLLY: We know this is a tricky subject, and we don't want you to mess it up. Because when you look bad, it reflects poorly on us.
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: Also, we love attention. First, we need to start with light.
MOLLY BLOOM: I was going to say that.
MIRROR MOLLY: You see, light is a kind of energy. When light hits something, three things can happen. It will either pass right through it, get absorbed by it, or bounce back.
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: We're able to see stuff because of the light that bounces back.
MOLLY BLOOM: Right. Those light rays bounce off stuff and enter our eyes, creating a picture of the things around us.
MIRROR MOLLY: Exactly. When something is bumpy, like fabric or wood, light bounces off of it in all sorts of directions. It scatters all about.
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: That kind of reflection is called diffuse.
MIRROR MOLLY: But when there's a very extremely smooth surface, light will bounce off that surface in a more orderly way.
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: That kind of reflection is called specular.
MIRROR MOLLY: And that's what you see when you look in a mirror. The light that bounces off you goes to the mirror and bounces right back at you.
ZORA PIPER: OK, thanks. That's very useful. But why can you see your reflection in the window when it's dark outside, but not when the sun is up?
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: Oh, excellent question, Zora Piper. You've come so far from that three-year-old drawing freckles on your face with permanent marker.
ZORA PIPER: How did you know? Oh, right. I use the mirror.
GLASS MOLLY: I'll take this one.
MIRROR MOLLY: Oh, Glass Molly, so glad you're here.
MOLLY BLOOM: There's more of you? I mean, me. I mean--
GLASS MOLLY: I'm the Molly you see reflected in windows and such. Glass will always reflect back some light. But when the sun is out, that light is so bright that you can't see the reflection on the glass. But when the sun goes down, you can see that the light is always there being reflected by the glass, and you can see me, Glass Molly.
POND MOLLY: And then there's me.
GLASS MOLLY: Oh, thank goodness, Pond Molly. I thought you weren't going to make it.
MOLLY BLOOM: Pond Molly?
POND MOLLY: I wouldn't miss this. I just wanted to make a splash with my dramatic entrance.
GLASS MOLLY: Of course you did.
POND MOLLY: You can also see your reflection in still, flat water, like a pond, because it's smooth. But the littlest sway or movement in the water can make the reflection blurrier.
GLASS MOLLY: Like when I flick the water like this.
POND MOLLY: Hey! Don't do that.
ZORA PIPER: There's a weird tension between Glass Molly and Pond Molly.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. I should probably bring this up in therapy. Well, thank you all so much for your time today. It's been very educational and a little terrifying.
MIRROR MOLLY: You're welcome.
MOLLY BLOOM: Zora Piper, can you put the mirror away now, OK?
ZORA PIPER: Gotcha.
MIRROR ZORA PIPER: You can put us away now, but we'll be back.
MIRROR MOLLY: Can't wait to help you look for gray hairs tonight.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK, well, I think it's time to talk to an expert that doesn't live inside a mirror.
ZORA PIPER: But there's probably a version of him that lives inside a mirror too.
MOLLY BLOOM: Anyway, we have Javier Hernandez Andres here to help us answer Zora Piper's question. He's a color scientist at the University of Granada in Spain.
ZORA PIPER: Welcome, Javier. You
JAVIER HERNANDEZ ANDRES: Thank you very much.
ZORA PIPER: So we asked you to be with us today so you could answer my question, what color is a mirror? But maybe we should first start off with what they're actually made of.
JAVIER HERNANDEZ ANDRES: To be simple in the answer, I would say that mirror is made of a layer of metal, like silver or aluminum. And then it has a thick, I would say, 1 centimeter or even less layer of glass, like the glass on your window.
ZORA PIPER: OK. And are there different types of mirror? Like are the mirrors that hang in my bedroom and the ones that are in telescopes or lasers different, or are they the same?
JAVIER HERNANDEZ ANDRES: So we use what we call as one surface mirror, which means there is no glass on top of it. But of course, if you use this kind of mirrors at home, then you can spoil them by crushing with your finger. So at home, you have a glass on top of it just to protect the metal layer. But in laboratories, in telescopes, they don't have this protection glass layer.
ZORA PIPER: Do you know if a mirror has a color?
JAVIER HERNANDEZ ANDRES: If you ask me what is the color of a mirror, I would answer, what is the color of the spoon that you use for eating soup? And you probably will say to me, gray. But this is because we are now focusing in the answer on the material. Of course, there is a difference between the spoon and the mirror because the spoon is not totally polished. A mirror is polished in order to produce a very sharp image.
But, yes, the answer will be the same. Because in this comparison, a mirror is like the spoon behind a window. So the window does not change the color of the spoon, right? So I would say, yes, the color of the mirror is like gray. Can I add something that probably is going to shock you a little bit?
ZORA PIPER: Sure, go ahead.
JAVIER HERNANDEZ ANDRES: I teach color science, and the first lesson that we teach to our students is that objects, things, don't have color. Color is just a perception that is produced thanks to our eyes, our retinas that it is produced our brain. So the color perception, or the color of an object, is quite different from one person to the other. In fact, the typical example is how animals see color in a very different way.
So, I wouldn't say that a piece of paper is white per se. It depends on the illumination. If you illuminate not with the typical white light coming from the sun or the white light that we have normally at home, if you illuminate with a red laser, this piece of paper will be perceived by you as red, not white. So it's a perception. And normally, when I teach that to students, they are shocked for a while.
ZORA PIPER: Well, I think anyone would be after discovering that news. Javier, thank you for being here with us today. I think we really appreciated your answers.
JAVIER HERNANDEZ ANDRES: It has been a pleasure, real pleasure.
SPEAKER: B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-Brains On.
MOLLY BLOOM: Here's another shiny thing. It's time for the--
SPEAKER: Mystery sound.
MOLLY BLOOM: Here it is.
[JINGLING]
What is your guess?
ZORA PIPER: Well, it sounds kind of like a sewing machine. And then maybe there's that little glass thing that's like putting away pins or getting them.
MOLLY BLOOM: I like that. Do you-- have you used a sewing machine?
ZORA PIPER: Yeah, I got one for Christmas three years ago, and me and my grandma always sew together when I visit her.
MOLLY BLOOM: That is super cool. What kind of stuff do you make?
ZORA PIPER: Well, we've made a few clothes. But mostly, we make like cuddly toys or projects out of a book, like banners or animals or stuffed houses.
MOLLY BLOOM: Really? Awesome. Well, we'll be back and hear it again and give you another chance to guess in just a little bit.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let's take a minute and think of all the stuff plants give us.
SPEAKER: Oxygen
MOLLY BLOOM: Fruit.
SPEAKER: Shade.
MOLLY BLOOM: Flowers.
SPEAKER: Veggies.
MOLLY BLOOM: Scenery.
SPEAKER: Homes for squirrels.
MOLLY BLOOM: And oh, so much more. Plants are pretty much the best. In fact, we think they should run for office. We're doing an episode on how awesome plants are, and we want to hear from you. Tell us, what slogan should plants use if they ran for president? So something like, "Plants: they're unbeleafable." So Zora Piper, do you have any ideas for what slogan you would want plants to use?
ZORA PIPER: "If you care about air, vote Botanicals for mayor." This message was approved by Squirrel Realtors at Sunburnt Humans.
[LAUGHING]
MOLLY BLOOM: That's so good. Record yourself reading your slogan for plants, and you could hear it on our show. Send it to us at brainson.org/contact. You can also send questions, mystery sounds, drawings, and ideas to that same address.
ZORA PIPER: BrainsOn.org/contact.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's what this listener did.
AMELIA: Hello, my name is Amelia, and I am from Wales. My question is, why do words sound funny when you keep repeating them?
ZORA PIPER: We'll be back with an answer during our moment of um at the end of the show.
MOLLY BLOOM: And we'll read the most recent list of names to be added to the Brain's Honor Roll.
ZORA PIPER: So keep listening.
You're listening to Brains On. I'm Zora Piper.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I'm Molly. Today, we're talking mirrors. And you know what's kind of like a tiny colored mirror but also you can wear it?
ZORA PIPER: Sequins?
MOLLY BLOOM: You got it. So Zora Piper, how would you describe what a sequin looks like?
ZORA PIPER: I would describe a sequin like a tiny mini donut, except with a smaller hole than usual. It also kind of makes you look like an alien if you look at your reflection at one. It gives you a really big forehead and makes the rest of your face look smaller.
MOLLY BLOOM: That's a really good description. Yeah, so they're like small, shiny disks. They come in all kinds of colors. And the big rage these days are those sequins that have a different color on each side. So you can flip them and create different patterns when you do. And we recently heard from a listener very, very curious about these shiny things.
MADISON: Hi, I'm Madison from Lynbrook, New York. My questions are: what are sequins made of and-- are made of, and how are they made?
MOLLY BLOOM: That is some serious sequin curiosity.
ZORA PIPER: Producer Tracy Mumford is here to tell us how these fun, shiny embellishments came to be.
TRACY MUMFORD: Sequins, they're flashy, they're shiny, they're fashion, and they're older than your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother. When you put on sequins, you're actually taking your fashion cues from over 3,000 years ago. That's before even the English language as we know it existed.
For thousands of years, people from India to Europe to Peru stitched flashy metal disks onto their clothing, head dresses, jackets, bonnets. People wore these metal disks on their clothes because it meant showing off your money, literally. The word for sequin is linked to a couple of different words for coin. As in, people were stitching their coins to their outfits. They always had their money with them and everyone could see it. One of the oldest examples we have of sequins comes from King Tut. The ancient Egyptian pharaoh had clothes in his tomb with real gold disks stitched to them.
Sequins changed over the centuries from actual gold money to different kinds of metal disks. Wealthy men and women in Europe in the 1600s and 1700s wore them to add sparkle to their outfits. Some dresses or jackets had thousands and thousands of sequins, each hand stitched on one by one. And you know what's heavy? A dress covered in thousands of metal sequins. You can't dance in that, and most people can't afford it.
But about 100 years ago, things started to change dramatically. In the 1920s, archeologists cracked open King Tut's tomb.
SPEAKER: Ooh!
TRACY MUMFORD: Word spread about the ancient fashions in there. And suddenly, what was very old was new again. Everybody wanted sequins. But not everyone could just stitch on some heavy metal or gold coins.
SPEAKER: How on earth can we do that?
TRACY MUMFORD: Fashion scientists came up with a brilliant and a little strange idea. Michael Birch Pierce, an artist, embroiderer, and sequin collector, talked me through it.
MICHAEL BIRCH PIERCE: Some of the first sequins then were sequins that were punched out of thin sheets of gelatin. Gelatin, which Jell-O is made out of, actually, we eat gelatin. But people were using it to make sequins on clothes in the 1920s and 30s.
TRACY MUMFORD: That's right, gelatin sequins. Out with the metal, in with the Jell-O. That was the new, brave, out-of-the-box sequin idea. Can you imagine, like, what about a pudding dress? No. OK. All right, that's too far. But these fancy new gelatin sequins, they were shiny. They were lightweight. They were used to make beautiful, fancy dresses for people to go out and dance in. But there was a small problem.
MICHAEL BIRCH PIERCE: Gelatin melts when it gets wet or if it gets too hot. So if you got caught in a rainstorm, your dress would melt off of you, all your sequins would fall apart.
TRACY MUMFORD: You could go from shiny star to soggy Jell-O mess in just one rainstorm. Or picture this. You're at the dance. You're boogying up a storm. Everybody's sweaty. And someone puts a hand on your back. Their hand could literally melt your sequins. There are vintage dresses from this time with ghost handprints melted into them. So with gelatin sequins, no water, no heat, or else.
MICHAEL BIRCH PIERCE: They weren't really ideal. I actually have some gelatin sequins in my studio right now. And I just poured some water on it-- on a few of them, and they just are-- they're gooey and falling apart completely. It's really fun to play with, but then it kind of feels like Jell-O now.
TRACY MUMFORD: So that whole gelatin sequin trend didn't really last. A cheaper, simpler, less likely to fall apart in the rain solution came along within just a few years-- plastic. That's what most sequins you see shimmering today are made out of. And some companies are even working to use recycled plastic for sequins to cut down on waste.
What will sequins be made of in the future? How will the future sparkle and shine? Will we ever have pudding dresses? We have to wait and see.
MOLLY BLOOM: That is very fascinating. Zora Piper, do you have any sequins on any of your clothes?
ZORA PIPER: Well, I don't own anything with sequins on it right now. But I had this shirt for Halloween with a black cat that turned into a skeleton cat when you reversed it.
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, so those cool flippy sequins that have stuff on both sides?
ZORA PIPER: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: Those are very awesome. So what is your favorite thing about sequins?
ZORA PIPER: My favorite thing about sequins is that when the light hits them, they reflect onto the wall, kind of like a disco ball.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah. And they're kind of-- their reflection is actually a different color based on what color the sequins are, which is super cool. So, Zora Piper, are you ready to go back to that mystery sound again?
ZORA PIPER: Yes.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. Let's hear it one more time.
[JINGLING]
Do you have any new thoughts?
ZORA PIPER: I think I'm going to stick with my sewing machine guess, but I did definitely hear something glass in it. Something glass being put down.
MOLLY BLOOM: Very good ears. Right here is the answer.
SANDEN TOTTEN: Hey, this is Sanden, and the sound you just heard was me shaking salt from a salt shaker. I played you the sound because we're going to be using some salt today to make DIY-- that stands for do-it-yourself-- glitter.
MOLLY BLOOM: He's very excited about the glitter. So the glass you heard-- you did hear glass-- was the salt shaker. But that sound was not a sewing machine. It was salt coming out of the salt shaker.
ZORA PIPER: Yeah, I wouldn't have guessed that.
MOLLY BLOOM: I know. It's tricky. So regular glitter, the kind you see in stores, is actually made of tiny bits of plastic. We call it microplastic. And it often ends up going down drains and out into the ocean where fish might accidentally eat it, or it can get into soil or inside other animals. And since plastic doesn't break down, it can build up in our environment and create a lot of problems.
So Sanden is going to teach us how to make a colorful, Earth-friendly version of glitter using salt.
SANDEN TOTTEN: All right, so I got three dishes in front of me and I'm going to put a little bit of salt, table salt, in each one. The next kind of salt I'm going to use is called epsom salt, a.k.a. magnesium sulfate. Now, this is like-- it's a kind of salt people often use in baths. They pour a little bit of salt in the bath and the hot water helps their muscles. Well, epsom salt looks like table salt, but it's a little bit bigger, a little more crystal looking, a little bit more sparkly. So let's add some of that to our dishes.
And now, the dishes look like they've got these little shiny crystals in them, these tiny crystals. But they're still completely clear. They're salt colored. So then we add a little bit of food coloring. So I want to make a purple glitter. So I'm going to add a little bit of blue and a little bit of red. Now mix it up and see how this goes. Oh yeah, that's purple.
And then in dish number two, I want to make an orange. So one drop of red and a drop of yellow. And in my last dish, I just want some green. So I'm just going to add one drop of green in here. You just got to let the glitter dry a little bit. And then once it's ready, you just put a little bit of glue on paper, sprinkle a little bit of this magic glitter dust, and voila! You're getting crafty. All right, that's it. Have fun. Bye.
MOLLY BLOOM: So Zora Piper, have you ever made your own glitter before?
ZORA PIPER: I cannot say I have. Though I have my friend made edible glitter once. So you just-- it's quite safe. You just take sugar and add food coloring and put it in the oven. And then apparently, that turns to glitter too.
MOLLY BLOOM: So you can use it to decorate cakes and stuff?
ZORA PIPER: Yeah. She put it on cupcakes.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mm. That is good. I love it. Two different kinds of glitter that are friendly for the Earth.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ZORA PIPER: Everything you see is reflecting light.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mirrors are so smooth that they bounce light back in a very orderly way.
ZORA PIPER: And that's why you can see yourself in a mirror.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mirrors are usually made of highly polished silver or aluminum. So the color of a mirror would be the same as those metals. But the color of the mirror could also be seen as the color of whatever it's reflecting.
ZORA PIPER: Sequins are like tiny mirrors made out of smooth plastic, but they weren't always that way.
MOLLY BLOOM: Since glitter and mirrors are made of plastic, they'll never go away. But there are some fun alternatives like homemade glitter. That's it for this episode of Brains On.
ZORA PIPER: Brains On is produced by Menaka Wilhelm, Marc Sanchez, Sanden Totten, and Molly Bloom.
MOLLY BLOOM: We had production help from Ruby Guthrie, Tracy Mumford, Josh Meltzer, and Christina Lopez. We had engineering help from Michael Osborne, Eric Stromstead, and Christine Ilmer. Many Thanks to Jen [INAUDIBLE], Susan [INAUDIBLE], Liana Eaton, Michael Birch Pearce, and the work of Emily Spivack in Smithsonian Magazine.
ZORA PIPER: Brains On is a nonprofit public radio podcast.
MOLLY BLOOM: You can help us keep making new episodes by making a gift at brainson.org/donate.
ZORA PIPER: Now, before we go, it's time for a Moment of Um.
SPEAKER: Uh.
Uh.
Um.
Um.
Um.
Um.
Um.
INTERVIEWER: My question is, why do words sound funny when you keep repeating them?
SHOHINI BHATTASALI: Words consist of different sounds, and our brain map these sounds to different meanings and concepts. So for example, when you hear the word "book", it maps it onto the idea of a book.
Hi, I'm Shohini Bhattasali. I'm a postdoctoral researcher in linguistics at the University of Maryland. So I study how our brains help us understand language. So when you keep repeating the word "book" continuously, you actually end up focusing on the sounds of the words itself, like "buh," 'ooh," "kuh." And those sounds itself have nothing really to do with the meaning of book, "buh," 'ooh," "kuh."
So after a while, what happens is that you kind of lose the meaning and it kind of ends up sounding funny to you, "buh," 'ooh," "kuh." So some people have said that this has to do with your brain kind of getting tired. It's a kind of fatigue. Because if you keep repeating the word, instead of continuously doing that linking, you just end up focusing on the sounds themselves.
SPEAKER: Um.
Um.
Um.
MOLLY BLOOM: This list of names is always worth repeating. It's the Brain Honor Roll. These are the wonderful listeners who keep this show going by sharing their questions, ideas, mystery sounds, and drawings with us.
[LISTING HONOR ROLL]
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
We'll be back soon with more answers to your questions.
Thanks for listening.
See you in the mirror.
Transcription services provided by 3Play Media.
