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Is there a word for a mirror reflecting another mirror infinitely? I.e. if two mirrors are put one against another, how would I call it (or if there is no word for it)?

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Maybe recursively reflecting mirrors would work? – iterationx Oct 14 '11 at 16:58

5 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

An easy way to summon up that image for most readers would be a reference to a hall of mirrors. If you want to talk about that effect, you might say hall-of-mirrors effect (though a quick Google search tells me this has specific connotations in the programming world).

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Another name given to the same thing is house of mirrors. – onomatomaniak Oct 14 '11 at 8:24
Or Fun-House Mirrors. – GEdgar Oct 14 '11 at 15:55
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Aren't funhouse mirrors more the type than make you skinny/fat/distorted/etc.? – onomatomaniak Oct 14 '11 at 16:12

You might say they were infinitely regressive, although that's a term generally used in logic.

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"Infinitely regressive" would be good, but I need it to be a little more poetic (sorry for not mentioning that in the question). – Mykolas Simutis Oct 14 '11 at 8:13

"Mise en abyme" is the French phrase but I think very usable in English poetry or prose:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_abyme

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How about "mirrorrim"? Not a real word as far as I know, but don't let that stop you.

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Too bad I have to translate it to Lithuanian.. :) – Mykolas Simutis Oct 14 '11 at 10:14
In laser physics we call it a resonant optical cavity, but that's not very poetic either. – Optimal Cynic Oct 14 '11 at 10:35

A year late and a dollar short. I found your thread trying to remember the word. Hint of the day: it's out there.

The word we were both looking for is "recursive" or "recursion".

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Perhaps reciprocal recursive, but recursive on its own means that the mirror would create this effect alone. – Em1 Nov 16 '12 at 21:29

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