Closer than they appear

Anyone who has driven a car recognizes the warning on the passenger-side mirror: “Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.” I was never curious about why this is the case for that mirror alone until I came up with the title for this article! The passenger-side mirror has a convex shape that widens the driver’s field of view but makes objects appear smaller and, therefore, farther away than they are. This seemed like an appropriate metaphor for assessing the first 72 days of the second ...