Optical Corner Reflectors
In optics, corner reflectors typically consist of three mirrors or reflective prism faces which return an incident light beam in the opposite direction. In surveying, retroreflector prisms are commonly used as targets for long-range electronic distance measurement using a total station.
NASA has put several optical corner reflectors made of quartz, known as the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment, on the Moon for use in laser time-of-flight measurement to measure the Moon’s orbit more precisely than was possible before.
Arrays of tiny corner reflectors are used in automobile and bicycle tail lights. Microscopic corner reflector structures can be incorporated into reflective paint for increased visibility at night, although retroreflective spherical beads are more common for this purpose.
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Famous quotes containing the words optical and/or corner:
“It is said that a carpenter building a summer hotel here ... declared that one very clear day he picked out a ship coming into Portland Harbor and could distinctly see that its cargo was West Indian rum. A county historian avers that it was probably an optical delusion, the result of looking so often through a glass in common use in those days.”
—For the State of New Hampshire, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“People think that if a man has undergone any hardship, he should have a reward; but for my part, if I have done the hardest possible day’s work, and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper comfortably—why, then I don’t think I deserve any reward for my hard day’s work—for am I not now at peace? Is not my supper good?”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)