When were mirrors invented and by who?
I would guess the problem is the air flow meter.
They were invented in the backstreets of Glasgow by Luke N Glass. Nobody knows who invented mirrors - just as nobody knows who invented the wheel. It's something that has been lost in the depths of history. Human nature has always involved an element of vanity.
The earliest account of the use of mirrors is actually of a woman named Achima (pronounced akima) , who, as advisor to the Greek military academy of the day (around 50 BC), had 5000 toxotai (greek archers) stand around the cliffs of a 'U' shaped bay with their polished brass shields. As an invading Cretian navy approached in 500 wooden ships, the army alternately focused the suns reflected rays onto each ship and set them ablaze. Thus, the mirror was a military invention as is much of today's technology.
Humans and our ancestors probably used pools of still water as mirrors for hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. Later, mirrors of polished metal or obsidian (volcanic glass) gave wealthy preeners a more portable view of themselves. The mirror as we know it, however, came about surprisingly early. Who was it, then, that first discovered that a sheet of glass, when backed with metal, becomes a perfect reflecting surface? As far as we know, the first mirror-makers lived near the city of Sidon, in Syria, some 2,400 years ago. Since glass itself was invented in the area, in neighboring Lebanon, it's not too surprising that Syria was the site of the earliest modern mirrors. Unfortunately, we do not know the name of the tinkerer who first came up with this invention. To make a mirror, pre-Christian Syrians blew a thin sphere of molten glass into a bubble, and then poured hot lead into the bulb of glass. The lead coated the inside of the glass. When the glass cooled, it was broken and cut into convex pieces of mirror. These early experiments in the art were not flat, so they must have been a bit like fun-house mirrors. (Users' noses probably looked enormous!) In addition, early glass was generally bubbly and discolored. Nonetheless, the images would have been much clearer than those obtained by looking into a sheet of polished copper or bronze. The bubbles of glass used were thin, minimizing the impact of the flaws, so these early glass mirrors were a definite improvement. This wonderful new technology quickly spread throughout the Roman Empire; mirrors were used not only for self-admiration, but also for magical amulets. After all, there's nothing like a clear glass mirror to repel the evil eye!
