1.
Geometry
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Geometry is a branch of mathematics concerned with questions of shape, size, relative position of figures, and the properties of space. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is called a geometer, Geometry arose independently in a number of early cultures as a practical way for dealing with lengths, areas, and volumes. Geometry began to see elements of mathematical science emerging in the West as early as the 6th century BC. By the 3rd century BC, geometry was put into a form by Euclid, whose treatment, Euclids Elements. Geometry arose independently in India, with texts providing rules for geometric constructions appearing as early as the 3rd century BC, islamic scientists preserved Greek ideas and expanded on them during the Middle Ages. By the early 17th century, geometry had been put on a solid footing by mathematicians such as René Descartes. Since then, and into modern times, geometry has expanded into non-Euclidean geometry and manifolds, while geometry has evolved significantly throughout the years, there are some general concepts that are more or less fundamental to geometry. These include the concepts of points, lines, planes, surfaces, angles, contemporary geometry has many subfields, Euclidean geometry is geometry in its classical sense. The mandatory educational curriculum of the majority of nations includes the study of points, lines, planes, angles, triangles, congruence, similarity, solid figures, circles, Euclidean geometry also has applications in computer science, crystallography, and various branches of modern mathematics. Differential geometry uses techniques of calculus and linear algebra to problems in geometry. It has applications in physics, including in general relativity, topology is the field concerned with the properties of geometric objects that are unchanged by continuous mappings. In practice, this often means dealing with large-scale properties of spaces, convex geometry investigates convex shapes in the Euclidean space and its more abstract analogues, often using techniques of real analysis. It has close connections to convex analysis, optimization and functional analysis, algebraic geometry studies geometry through the use of multivariate polynomials and other algebraic techniques. It has applications in areas, including cryptography and string theory. Discrete geometry is concerned mainly with questions of relative position of simple objects, such as points. It shares many methods and principles with combinatorics, Geometry has applications to many fields, including art, architecture, physics, as well as to other branches of mathematics. The earliest recorded beginnings of geometry can be traced to ancient Mesopotamia, the earliest known texts on geometry are the Egyptian Rhind Papyrus and Moscow Papyrus, the Babylonian clay tablets such as Plimpton 322. For example, the Moscow Papyrus gives a formula for calculating the volume of a truncated pyramid, later clay tablets demonstrate that Babylonian astronomers implemented trapezoid procedures for computing Jupiters position and motion within time-velocity space
2.
Tetrahedral symmetry
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A regular tetrahedron has 12 rotational symmetries, and a symmetry order of 24 including transformations that combine a reflection and a rotation. The set of orientation-preserving symmetries forms a group referred to as the alternating subgroup A4 of S4, chiral and full are discrete point symmetries. They are among the point groups of the cubic crystal system. Seen in stereographic projection the edges of the tetrakis hexahedron form 6 circles in the plane, each of these 6 circles represent a mirror line in tetrahedral symmetry. The intersection of these meet at order 2 and 3 gyration points. T,332, +, or 23, of order 12 – chiral or rotational tetrahedral symmetry, there are three orthogonal 2-fold rotation axes, like chiral dihedral symmetry D2 or 222, with in addition four 3-fold axes, centered between the three orthogonal directions. This group is isomorphic to A4, the group on 4 elements, in fact it is the group of even permutations of the four 3-fold axes. The three elements of the latter are the identity, clockwise rotation, and anti-clockwise rotation, corresponding to permutations of the three orthogonal 2-fold axes, preserving orientation. Td, *332, or 43m, of order 24 – achiral or full tetrahedral symmetry and this group has the same rotation axes as T, but with six mirror planes, each through two 3-fold axes. The 2-fold axes are now S4 axes, td and O are isomorphic as abstract groups, they both correspond to S4, the symmetric group on 4 objects. Td is the union of T and the set obtained by combining each element of O \ T with inversion, see also the isometries of the regular tetrahedron. This group has the same axes as T, with mirror planes through two of the orthogonal directions. The 3-fold axes are now S6 axes, and there is an inversion symmetry. Th is isomorphic to T × Z2, every element of Th is either an element of T, apart from these two normal subgroups, there is also a normal subgroup D2h, of type Dih2 × Z2 = Z2 × Z2 × Z2. It is the product of the normal subgroup of T with Ci. The quotient group is the same as above, of type Z3, the three elements of the latter are the identity, clockwise rotation, and anti-clockwise rotation, corresponding to permutations of the three orthogonal 2-fold axes, preserving orientation. It is the symmetry of a cube with on each face a line segment dividing the face into two rectangles, such that the line segments of adjacent faces do not meet at the edge. The symmetries correspond to the permutations of the body diagonals
3.
Octahedral symmetry
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A regular octahedron has 24 rotational symmetries, and a symmetry order of 48 including transformations that combine a reflection and a rotation. A cube has the set of symmetries, since it is the dual of an octahedron. Chiral and full octahedral symmetry are the point symmetries with the largest symmetry groups compatible with translational symmetry. They are among the point groups of the cubic crystal system. But as it is also the direct product S4 × S2, one can identify the elements of S4 as a ∈ [0,4. ). So e. g. the identity is represented as 0, the pairs can be seen in the six files below. Each file is denoted by the m ∈, and the position of each permutation in the file corresponds to the n ∈. A rotoreflection is a combination of rotation and reflection,7 ′ ∘4 =19 ′,7 ′ ∘22 =17 ′, The reflection 7 ′ applied on the 90° rotation 22 gives the 90° rotoreflection 17 ′. O,432, or + of order 24, is chiral octahedral symmetry or rotational octahedral symmetry. This group is like chiral tetrahedral symmetry T, but the C2 axes are now C4 axes, Td and O are isomorphic as abstract groups, they both correspond to S4, the symmetric group on 4 objects. Td is the union of T and the set obtained by combining each element of O \ T with inversion, O is the rotation group of the cube and the regular octahedron. Oh, *432, or m3m of order 48 - achiral octahedral symmetry or full octahedral symmetry and this group has the same rotation axes as O, but with mirror planes, comprising both the mirror planes of Td and Th. This group is isomorphic to S4. C4, and is the symmetry group of the cube. It is the group for n =3. See also the isometries of the cube, with the 4-fold axes as coordinate axes, a fundamental domain of Oh is given by 0 ≤ x ≤ y ≤ z. An object with symmetry is characterized by the part of the object in the fundamental domain, for example the cube is given by z =1. Ax + by + cz =1 gives a polyhedron with 48 faces, faces are 8-by-8 combined to larger faces for a = b =0 and 6-by-6 for a = b = c. The 9 mirror lines of full octahedral symmetry can be divided into two subgroups of 3 and 6, representing in two orthogonal subsymmetries, D2h, and Td, D2h symmetry can be doubled to D4h by restoring 2 mirrors from one of three orientations
4.
Archimedes
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Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the scientists in classical antiquity. He was also one of the first to apply mathematics to physical phenomena, founding hydrostatics and statics and he is credited with designing innovative machines, such as his screw pump, compound pulleys, and defensive war machines to protect his native Syracuse from invasion. Archimedes died during the Siege of Syracuse when he was killed by a Roman soldier despite orders that he should not be harmed. Cicero describes visiting the tomb of Archimedes, which was surmounted by a sphere and a cylinder, unlike his inventions, the mathematical writings of Archimedes were little known in antiquity. Archimedes was born c.287 BC in the city of Syracuse, Sicily, at that time a self-governing colony in Magna Graecia. The date of birth is based on a statement by the Byzantine Greek historian John Tzetzes that Archimedes lived for 75 years, in The Sand Reckoner, Archimedes gives his fathers name as Phidias, an astronomer about whom nothing is known. Plutarch wrote in his Parallel Lives that Archimedes was related to King Hiero II, a biography of Archimedes was written by his friend Heracleides but this work has been lost, leaving the details of his life obscure. It is unknown, for instance, whether he married or had children. During his youth, Archimedes may have studied in Alexandria, Egypt and he referred to Conon of Samos as his friend, while two of his works have introductions addressed to Eratosthenes. Archimedes died c.212 BC during the Second Punic War, according to the popular account given by Plutarch, Archimedes was contemplating a mathematical diagram when the city was captured. A Roman soldier commanded him to come and meet General Marcellus but he declined, the soldier was enraged by this, and killed Archimedes with his sword. Plutarch also gives an account of the death of Archimedes which suggests that he may have been killed while attempting to surrender to a Roman soldier. According to this story, Archimedes was carrying mathematical instruments, and was killed because the thought that they were valuable items. General Marcellus was reportedly angered by the death of Archimedes, as he considered him a valuable asset and had ordered that he not be harmed. Marcellus called Archimedes a geometrical Briareus, the last words attributed to Archimedes are Do not disturb my circles, a reference to the circles in the mathematical drawing that he was supposedly studying when disturbed by the Roman soldier. This quote is given in Latin as Noli turbare circulos meos. The phrase is given in Katharevousa Greek as μὴ μου τοὺς κύκλους τάραττε
5.
Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
6.
Johannes Kepler
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Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th-century scientific revolution, he is best known for his laws of motion, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi. These works also provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newtons theory of universal gravitation, Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, where he became an associate of Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Later he became an assistant to the astronomer Tycho Brahe in Prague and he was also a mathematics teacher in Linz, and an adviser to General Wallenstein. Kepler lived in an era when there was no distinction between astronomy and astrology, but there was a strong division between astronomy and physics. Kepler was born on December 27, the feast day of St John the Evangelist,1571 and his grandfather, Sebald Kepler, had been Lord Mayor of the city. By the time Johannes was born, he had two brothers and one sister and the Kepler family fortune was in decline and his father, Heinrich Kepler, earned a precarious living as a mercenary, and he left the family when Johannes was five years old. He was believed to have died in the Eighty Years War in the Netherlands and his mother Katharina Guldenmann, an innkeepers daughter, was a healer and herbalist. Born prematurely, Johannes claimed to have weak and sickly as a child. Nevertheless, he often impressed travelers at his grandfathers inn with his phenomenal mathematical faculty and he was introduced to astronomy at an early age, and developed a love for it that would span his entire life. At age six, he observed the Great Comet of 1577, in 1580, at age nine, he observed another astronomical event, a lunar eclipse, recording that he remembered being called outdoors to see it and that the moon appeared quite red. However, childhood smallpox left him with vision and crippled hands. In 1589, after moving through grammar school, Latin school, there, he studied philosophy under Vitus Müller and theology under Jacob Heerbrand, who also taught Michael Maestlin while he was a student, until he became Chancellor at Tübingen in 1590. He proved himself to be a mathematician and earned a reputation as a skilful astrologer. Under the instruction of Michael Maestlin, Tübingens professor of mathematics from 1583 to 1631 and he became a Copernican at that time. In a student disputation, he defended heliocentrism from both a theoretical and theological perspective, maintaining that the Sun was the source of motive power in the universe. Despite his desire to become a minister, near the end of his studies, Kepler was recommended for a position as teacher of mathematics and he accepted the position in April 1594, at the age of 23. Keplers first major work, Mysterium Cosmographicum, was the first published defense of the Copernican system
7.
Hexagon
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In geometry, a hexagon is a six sided polygon or 6-gon. The total of the angles of any hexagon is 720°. A regular hexagon has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as an equilateral triangle, t. A regular hexagon is defined as a hexagon that is both equilateral and equiangular and it is bicentric, meaning that it is both cyclic and tangential. The common length of the sides equals the radius of the circumscribed circle, all internal angles are 120 degrees. A regular hexagon has 6 rotational symmetries and 6 reflection symmetries, the longest diagonals of a regular hexagon, connecting diametrically opposite vertices, are twice the length of one side. Like squares and equilateral triangles, regular hexagons fit together without any gaps to tile the plane, the cells of a beehive honeycomb are hexagonal for this reason and because the shape makes efficient use of space and building materials. The Voronoi diagram of a triangular lattice is the honeycomb tessellation of hexagons. It is not usually considered a triambus, although it is equilateral, the maximal diameter, D is twice the maximal radius or circumradius, R, which equals the side length, t. The minimal diameter or the diameter of the circle, d, is twice the minimal radius or inradius. If a regular hexagon has successive vertices A, B, C, D, E, F, the regular hexagon has Dih6 symmetry, order 12. There are 3 dihedral subgroups, Dih3, Dih2, and Dih1, and 4 cyclic subgroups, Z6, Z3, Z2 and these symmetries express 9 distinct symmetries of a regular hexagon. John Conway labels these by a letter and group order, r12 is full symmetry, and a1 is no symmetry. These two forms are duals of each other and have half the order of the regular hexagon. The i4 forms are regular hexagons flattened or stretched along one symmetry direction and it can be seen as an elongated rhombus, while d2 and p2 can be seen as horizontally and vertically elongated kites. G2 hexagons, with sides parallel are also called hexagonal parallelogons. Each subgroup symmetry allows one or more degrees of freedom for irregular forms, only the g6 subgroup has no degrees of freedom but can seen as directed edges. Hexagons of symmetry g2, i4, and r12, as parallelogons can tessellate the Euclidean plane by translation, other hexagon shapes can tile the plane with different orientations
8.
Octagon
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In geometry, an octagon is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A regular octagon has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a truncated square, t. A truncated octagon, t is a hexadecagon, t, the sum of all the internal angles of any octagon is 1080°. As with all polygons, the external angles total 360°, the midpoint octagon of a reference octagon has its eight vertices at the midpoints of the sides of the reference octagon. A regular octagon is a figure with sides of the same length. It has eight lines of symmetry and rotational symmetry of order 8. A regular octagon is represented by the Schläfli symbol, the internal angle at each vertex of a regular octagon is 135°. The area of an octagon of side length a is given by A =2 cot π8 a 2 =2 a 2 ≃4.828 a 2. In terms of the circumradius R, the area is A =4 sin π4 R2 =22 R2 ≃2.828 R2. In terms of the r, the area is A =8 tan π8 r 2 =8 r 2 ≃3.314 r 2. These last two coefficients bracket the value of pi, the area of the unit circle. The area can also be expressed as A = S2 − a 2, where S is the span of the octagon, or the second-shortest diagonal, and a is the length of one of the sides, or bases. This is easily proven if one takes an octagon, draws a square around the outside and then takes the corner triangles and places them with right angles pointed inward, the edges of this square are each the length of the base. Given the length of a side a, the span S is S = a 2 + a + a 2 = a ≈2.414 a. The area is then as above, A =2 − a 2 =2 a 2 ≈4.828 a 2, expressed in terms of the span, the area is A =2 S2 ≈0.828 S2. Another simple formula for the area is A =2 a S, more often the span S is known, and the length of the sides, a, is to be determined, as when cutting a square piece of material into a regular octagon. From the above, a ≈ S /2.414, the two end lengths e on each side, as well as being e = a /2, may be calculated as e = /2. The circumradius of the octagon in terms of the side length a is R = a
9.
Rhombicuboctahedron
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In geometry, the rhombicuboctahedron, or small rhombicuboctahedron, is an Archimedean solid with eight triangular and eighteen square faces. There are 24 identical vertices, with one triangle and three meeting at each. The polyhedron has octahedral symmetry, like the cube and octahedron and its dual is called the deltoidal icositetrahedron or trapezoidal icositetrahedron, although its faces are not really true trapezoids. Johannes Kepler in Harmonices Mundi named this polyhedron a rhombicuboctahedron, being short for truncated cuboctahedral rhombus and this truncation creates new vertices mid-edge to the rhombic dodecahedron, creating rectangular faces inside the original rhombic faces, and new square and triangle faces at the original vertices. The semiregular form here requires the geometry be adjusted so the rectangles become squares and it can also be called an expanded cube or cantellated cube or a cantellated octahedron from truncation operations of the uniform polyhedron. There are distortions of the rhombicuboctahedron that, while some of the faces are not regular polygons, are still vertex-uniform. Some of these can be made by taking a cube or octahedron and cutting off the edges, then trimming the corners, so the resulting polyhedron has six square and twelve rectangular faces. The lines along which a Rubiks Cube can be turned are, projected onto a sphere, similar, topologically identical, in fact, variants using the Rubiks Cube mechanism have been produced which closely resemble the rhombicuboctahedron. The rhombicuboctahedron is used in three uniform space-filling tessellations, the cubic honeycomb, the runcitruncated cubic honeycomb, and the runcinated alternated cubic honeycomb. The rhombicuboctahedron can be dissected into two square cupolae and an octagonal prism. A rotation of one cupola by 45 degrees creates the pseudorhombicuboctahedron, both of these polyhedra have the same vertex figure,3.4.4.4. There are three pairs of parallel planes that each intersect the rhombicuboctahedron in a regular octagon and these pieces can be reassembled to give a new solid called the elongated square gyrobicupola or pseudorhombicuboctahedron, with the symmetry of a square antiprism. The rhombicuboctahedron has six special orthogonal projections, centered, on a vertex, the last two correspond to the B2 and A2 Coxeter planes. The rhombicuboctahedron can also be represented as a tiling. This projection is conformal, preserving angles but not areas or lengths, straight lines on the sphere are projected as circular arcs on the plane. A half symmetry form of the rhombicuboctahedron, exists with pyritohedral symmetry, as Coxeter diagram, Schläfli symbol s2 and this form can be visualized by alternatingly coloring the edges of the 6 squares. These squares can then be distorted into rectangles, while the 8 triangles remain equilateral, the 12 diagonal square faces will become isosceles trapezoids. Cartesian coordinates for the vertices of a rhombicuboctahedron centred at the origin, if the original rhombicuboctahedron has unit edge length, its dual strombic icositetrahedron has edge lengths 2710 −2 and 4 −22
10.
Platonic solid
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In three-dimensional space, a Platonic solid is a regular, convex polyhedron. It is constructed by congruent regular polygonal faces with the number of faces meeting at each vertex. Five solids meet those criteria, Geometers have studied the mathematical beauty and they are named for the ancient Greek philosopher Plato who theorized in his dialogue, the Timaeus, that the classical elements were made of these regular solids. The Platonic solids have been known since antiquity, dice go back to the dawn of civilization with shapes that predated formal charting of Platonic solids. The ancient Greeks studied the Platonic solids extensively, some sources credit Pythagoras with their discovery. In any case, Theaetetus gave a description of all five. The Platonic solids are prominent in the philosophy of Plato, their namesake, Plato wrote about them in the dialogue Timaeus c.360 B. C. in which he associated each of the four classical elements with a regular solid. Earth was associated with the cube, air with the octahedron, water with the icosahedron, there was intuitive justification for these associations, the heat of fire feels sharp and stabbing. Air is made of the octahedron, its components are so smooth that one can barely feel it. Water, the icosahedron, flows out of hand when picked up. By contrast, a highly nonspherical solid, the hexahedron represents earth and these clumsy little solids cause dirt to crumble and break when picked up in stark difference to the smooth flow of water. Moreover, the cubes being the regular solid that tessellates Euclidean space was believed to cause the solidity of the Earth. Of the fifth Platonic solid, the dodecahedron, Plato obscurely remarks. the god used for arranging the constellations on the whole heaven. Aristotle added an element, aithēr and postulated that the heavens were made of this element. Euclid completely mathematically described the Platonic solids in the Elements, the last book of which is devoted to their properties, propositions 13–17 in Book XIII describe the construction of the tetrahedron, octahedron, cube, icosahedron, and dodecahedron in that order. For each solid Euclid finds the ratio of the diameter of the sphere to the edge length. In Proposition 18 he argues there are no further convex regular polyhedra. Andreas Speiser has advocated the view that the construction of the 5 regular solids is the goal of the deductive system canonized in the Elements
11.
Mirror image
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A mirror image is a reflected duplication of an object that appears almost identical, but is reversed in the direction perpendicular to the mirror surface. As an optical effect it results from reflection off of such as a mirror or water. It is also a concept in geometry and can be used as a process for 3-D structures. Two-dimensional mirror images can be seen in the reflections of mirrors or other reflecting surfaces, or on a printed surface seen inside out. If we look at an object that is effectively two-dimensional and then turn it towards a mirror, in this example, it is the change in orientation rather than the mirror itself that causes the observed reversal. Another example is when we stand with our backs to the mirror, then we compare the object with its reflection by turning ourselves 180 degrees, towards the mirror. Again we perceive a left-right reversal due to a change in orientation, so, in these examples the mirror does not actually cause the observed reversals. The concept of reflection can be extended to three-dimensional objects, including the inside parts, the term then relates to structural as well as visual aspects. A three-dimensional object is reversed in the perpendicular to the mirror surface. In physics, mirror images are investigated in the subject called geometrical optics, in chemistry, two versions of a molecule, one a mirror image of the other, are called enantiomers if they are not superposable on each other. That is an example of chirality, in general, an object and its mirror image are called enantiomorphs. If a point of an object has coordinates then the image of this point has coordinates, thus reflection is a reversal of the coordinate axis perpendicular to the mirrors surface. In everyday use, a mirror does not reverse right and left, however, there is often a perception of left-right reversal, probably because the left and right of an object are defined by its top and front. Reflection in a mirror does result in a change in chirality, as a consequence, if one looks in a mirror and lets two axes coincide with those in the mirror, then this gives a reversal of the third axis. Similarly, if you stand side-on to a mirror your left and its important to realise there are only two enantiomorphs, the object and its image. So, no matter how the object is oriented towards the mirror, all the images are fundamentally identical. In the photograph of the urn and mirror, the urn is fairly symmetrical front-back, so, its not surprising that no obvious reversal of the urn can be seen in the mirror image. A mirror image appears more obviously three-dimensional if the observer moves and this is because the relative position of objects changes as the observers perspective changes, or is different viewed with each eye
