They wouldn’t be reversed. You’re seeing one side of the numbers, and a reflection of the reverse side of the numbers. They would look the same. Don’t believe me? Cut a “5” out of a piece of cardboard and hold it up to a mirror. It won’t be reversed. In fact, mirrors don’t “flip” anything. Think of it like this: if your entire body were invisible except for the very front surface, somebody standing behind you would see what you see when you look in a mirror.
Mallett doesn’t understand the definition of “tautology”. A tautology is a statement that must always be true, and therefore is essentially meaningless, for example “It is what it is.” The word Caulfield is looking for is “redundancy”. And as other commenters have pointed out, it’s not necessarily redundant either as there are such things as temporary records.
Beaker is misspelled.