The name originates from the replacement of certain elements in the original layout with imaginary magnets, which replicates the boundary conditions of the problem (see Dirichlet boundary conditions). In a simplest case of the magnetic dipole over the flat superconducting surface (see Fig. 1), the magnetic field, generated by a dipole moved from its initial position (at which the superconductor is cooled to the superconducting state) to a final position and by the screening currents at the superconducting surface, is equivalent to the field of three magnetic dipoles: the real one (1), its mirror image (3), and the mirror image of it in initial (FC) position but with the magnetization vector inversed (2).