Even as a child, from my grandfather, I heard about mirrors, which, although they do not know how to talk (as in Pushkin's fairy tale), show what is inaccessible to the human eye. Grandfather said that they were made in Ancient China, and to this day no one can guess the secret of the masters.
As an adult, I traveled all over the Celestial Empire in search of magical Chinese mirrors. And then one day I was lucky. An old friend of my father, who knew about my hobby, gave me a bronze mirror, which I passionately dreamed of.
It was antique, handmade, the front side was slightly convex, polished so that it could be used as a mirror, and the back side was decorated with an image of Leygun - the god of thunder with the body of a dragon and the head of a man. The figure of the celestial was covered with a green oxide, which is often found on old bronze objects, giving them a special charm and indicating a very venerable age.
I knew - if you direct a mirror at the sun, and a sunbeam reflected by it, at a white wall or a sheet of paper, then an image will appear on it, which is not on the front side of the mirror, but is on the back. I took the mirror with trembling hands, but only at that moment did I notice that the day was cloudy and rainy.
I had to wait. But the next morning, my patience was rewarded with interest. The mirror donated by the old Chinese turned out to be the most magical: on the white sheet of Whatman paper, which I specially saved for this solemn occasion, Leigong was reflected in all its glory.
WHAT WILL SCIENCE SAY?
It is not known for certain when they learned to make transparent mirrors in China, but the oldest magic mirror found dates back to 500 AD. e. It was discovered during excavations of the tomb of a noble nobleman in southern China. The next mirror was in the tomb of a Tang emperor who died around 950 AD. e. With him, 26 wives, aged 13 to 26, were buried in the same grave. There was one mirror for all!
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And only 500 years later, during the reign of the Ming dynasty, magic mirrors ceased to be a rarity for the rulers of China. Mirrors of this particular era can now be found in the largest museums in the world. I saw and fell in love with them forever. And of course, like many other people, I was haunted by the mystery of their manufacture.
But I found out that dozens of articles and books have been written on this topic. And this is despite the fact that none of the authors was able to reveal the secret of the mirrors. How were they made? Why did the images appear on the back of the mirror? And finally, the most important mystery - why only one of the hundreds of mirrors made showed magical properties? Nobody knew the answers to these questions. More precisely, each author believed that he had found a solution, but then a new work appeared, completely discrediting the previous one.
The first attempts to open the veil of secrecy were made in the 11th century. Chinese scientist Shen Kua. He believed that when casting, the thinner part of the mirror cools faster than the thicker one, and this leads to small, imperceptible surface curvatures.
Several centuries later, David Brewster, a Scottish physicist and inventor of our favorite kaleidoscope toy, wrote that the image generated by the mirror is not associated with the pattern on the back, but is applied with a weak acid solution to the front surface, after which it is polished.
In the XIX century. Western scholars believed that the magic mirror was made in the following way. After casting, the master applied a relief pattern to the back of the mirror. Then I sanded the front side, pressing hard on it. At the same time, the thinner parts of the mirror, located above the relief depressions, sagged slightly and were less exposed to the abrasive effect.
After polishing, they straightened and protruded slightly above the middle level of the mirror. As a result, figures of convex micromirrors appeared on the front surface, corresponding to the relief of the image on the reverse side of the product. It was they who formed the pattern inside the sunbeam.
The explanation sounded very authoritative, if not for one thing. No one in Europe or America has ever been able to make a single mirror according to this recipe. Imagine the surprise of the world community when in the middle of the century the Japanese brought a whole batch of magic mirrors to Europe. Where they got them is unknown. Maybe they stole a secret from Chinese craftsmen or learned how to make them yourself. Be that as it may, but in 1877, a whole exhibition of magic mirrors from Japan was organized in London!
However, the Chinese did not remain in debt and showed the world another masterpiece - an ancient mirror 1.3 cm thick. With such a layer of bronze, all the explanations of European scientists looked ridiculous and ridiculous. But the most incredible thing was different. This time, the sunbeam pattern did not match the relief on the back of the mirror!
It depicted the sun rising over the lake, and the moon and stars appeared on the wall of the temple in the reflected sunbeam. The magic mirror has set the next task for the scientific world. Moreover, the previous one has not yet been solved …
AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED
At the beginning of the XX century. a new wave of interest in Chinese mirrors has risen. But then, alas, the First and then the Second World Wars broke out first. And at the end of the 1950s. it turned out that no one else makes magic mirrors either in China or in Japan - no one else. Some of the old masters died, others were killed …
Fortunately, in 1961, Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, having visited the Shanghai Museum, became interested in magic mirrors and ordered the restoration of their production.
But it's one thing to give a command, and quite another to execute it. Several universities and technical institutes struggled for two years to solve this problem, but, alas, they did not succeed. And only in the third year, magic Chinese mirrors of the latest production, which were in no way inferior to the ancients, were revealed to the world. The images reflected by them either corresponded or did not correspond to the relief on the back of the mirror. Therefore, the old technology was revived. But, as before, the secret of making was kept in the strictest confidence.
Today, several dozen scientists are trying to unravel the secret of Chinese mirrors, but to no avail. There are at least six ways in which you can make a magic mirror. Only for some reason none of them can do it.
Several years ago, Russian and American scientists cut a magic mirror to check if there were metal irregularities in the places that project the image. The latest microscopes, liquid crystals, modern technologies were used, but no structural inhomogeneities were found. In the end, an article appeared in one scientific journal, which said: "In the history of optics it is hardly possible to find such a fascinating mystery that can be compared with the riddle of the magic mirrors of the East, although mankind has been struggling for almost four millennia to explain their amazing properties."
THE SOLUTION - IN RUSSIA
We have a place in Siberia that keeps many secrets, including those related to mirrors. This is the Minusinsk Basin, located 300 km from Krasnoyarsk. Incredibly, in these far from sunny regions archaeologists have discovered traces of ancient cultures that mastered the production of bronze in the III millennium BC. e., that is, earlier than in China.
But the most incredible thing is that about four hundred ancient bronze mirrors were found in the Minusinsk Basin. Half of them are kept in local museums. These priceless exhibits lie face down, and this suggests that the researchers studied exclusively drawings and inscriptions located on the reverse, back side. And they did not pay any attention to the front, covered with a layer of patina.
I suggested that the museum staff take one of the mirrors to the workshop and polish the front side. What if it turns out that these mirrors are magical ?! But they looked at me like I was crazy. This is understandable, the task of museum workers is to preserve a priceless relic, and not polish a mirror that is a thousand years old. Even if in order to unravel the greatest mystery …
In China, legends were made about magic mirrors. One of them says that on a fine sunny day, the emperor's wife walked in the garden and admired her reflection in a bronze mirror. A ray of the sun was reflected from the mirror, and an image of a dragon appeared on the snow-white wall of the palace. Exactly as it was painted on the back of the mirror. So, according to legend, the magical property of Chinese mirrors was discovered, which they began to call nothing other than transparent. And this amazing property of them is reflected even in the proverb: "In the sun, the truth always comes out."
Sergey SHAPOVALOV