@deepak: u r slightly on the right track in the fact that you are thinking EMwave characteristics, but this one involves with manipulating (rather than tampering) the reflected ray, not the incident. But could you please elaborate what you were thinking? (there are alternative solutions to almost every problem and I would love to hear it)

@deepak: you are slightly on the right track in the fact that you are thinking EMwaves properties. But this one has to do with "manipulating the reflected wave" rather than "tamper the incident ray". But could you please tell what you were thinking? there are alternate solutions to everything and I would be love to hear them.

 @ deepak: you are slightly on the right track in the fact that you are thinking EM waves characteristics.. but here, we rather manipulate the reflected wave than tampering with the incident ray/wave ..... but plsz let me know what was on ur mind... every problem has multiple solutions... i'd love to hear one.

@optimus: could you please explain a bit?  If you are talking about bending the light ray by refraction, then it is not a general solution, because the general solution works for ALL casses, whatever the length of the cut-mirror. Also, this solution requires (as mentioned in the very first post) that no extra things are to be added, and that includes water too!  But I agree the method would work for specific situations when addingof water etc is allowed. We can use a block of any material with the right optical density placed in front of the mirror to bend th rays as we want, but this is not the case here.

@raj: oh never bother! this is just for the delight of the unconventional solution that Feynman teaches in his book. (I dont think i have the least chances into JEE with just a  likeness fr these kind of thngs) .. I'll give the answer at 9-10 pm today then... Last hint if u come online within this time: "DIFFRACTION"

It would be possible, if we could bend the mirror into a convex one,but of course, a flexible mirror is very rare.

Another suggestion would be to break the mirror into very small pieces (I have read somewhere that the laws of reflection hold only when the reflecting surface is very large as compared to the wavelength of incident light, though I don’t know how exactly it changes and  if that could be of any help here)

 What else can we do to a mirror without using anything other than break or bend it?

And….please..please post the solution soon.

@ Vivek Roy

That is true, it is quite impossible to do so externally. I posted that option without giving it any thought and wanted to change it later, but it was too late to edit.

@ xeonax (or whatever) ::: you had to post that page right from the buk??!! huh! :-D

@deepak: you came closest to the answer ... the laws of relfection infact are derived by treating the light as an EMWave that behaves as 'particles' when interact with matter.. in this case, the waves travel through air in every possible direction, then hit the mirro, interact with the atoms of the mirror as particles, then are thrown away in every direction as waves, as shown in th  page posted by xeonax... (it is from the buk which i mentioned)...

@Vivek: close, but rather than making it rough, we got to do something further, bacause diffuse relfection does not follow any law. You cannot predict anything from something that does not behave as you want it to behave! .. but what we do is equivalent to making it rough. But as i said, diffraction is how we understand it best.

What about cutting only the glass part of the mirror into fine slits/holes so as to act as diffraction gratings for the reflected ray?after