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News tagged with mirrors

Tiny planet-finding mirrors borrow from Webb Telescope playbook

NASA's next flagship mission — the James Webb Space Telescope — will carry the largest primary mirror ever deployed. This segmented behemoth will unfold to 21.3 feet in diameter once the observatory ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Retroreflector transmits light with negligible power consumption

(Phys.org) -- In free-space optical communications (FSO), data is wirelessly transmitted by light propagating through open space. Among their applications, FSO systems are used for communications between spacecraft ...

Technology / Engineering

created Apr 17, 2012 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (6) | comments 2 | with audio podcast feature

Improving lasers with microring mirrors

(PhysOrg.com) -- We use lasers everyday, though many of us may not think about it. “Lasers are in a number of consumer products,” Lynford Goddard tells PhysOrg.com. “We have them in DVD players, printers, and in ...

Physics / General Physics

created Sep 13, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (8) | comments 1 | with audio podcast feature

Anti-mirror optical illusion could increase LED luminosity and laser power

(PhysOrg.com) -- By making multiple objects appear to look like only one using a "perfect lens," scientists have demonstrated a new optical illusion that could have practical applications in lighting systems. ...

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Nov 15, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (20) | comments 7 | with audio podcast feature

Light, instead of electrodes, could control deformable mirrors

(PhysOrg.com) -- The field of adaptive optics is advancing in interest as technology makes it possible to use deformable mirrors for a number of applications in optoelectronics. Deformable mirrors usually make use of rigid ...

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Jul 15, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (62) | comments 5 | with audio podcast feature

Scientists create light from vacuum

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at Chalmers University of Technology have succeeded in creating light from vacuum – observing an effect first predicted over 40 years ago. The results will be published tomorrow ...

Physics / General Physics

created Nov 17, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (74) | comments 105 | with audio podcast

Close encounters: When Daniel123 met Jane234 (w/ video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Qbo robots created a stir recently when their developers succeeded in demonstrating that a Qbo can be trained to recognize itself in the mirror. Now the developers have taken their explorations ...

Electronics / Robotics

created Jan 04, 2012 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (8) | comments 4 | with audio podcast report

The universe may have been born spinning, according to new findings on the symmetry of the cosmos

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists and astronomers have long believed that the universe has mirror symmetry, like a basketball. But recent findings from the University of Michigan suggest that the shape of the Big ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 08, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (37) | comments 82 | with audio podcast

Researchers showcase cylindrical mirror on iPad

(PhysOrg.com) -- A research team from a women's university in Japan is developing a cylindrical mirror for use with the multi-touch iPad. The mirror could send online shoppers into new optical highs. The group, ...

Technology / Hi Tech & Innovation

created Oct 30, 2011 | popularity 2.5 / 5 (15) | comments 10 | with audio podcast weblog

Signs of dark matter may point to mirror matter candidate

(PhysOrg.com) -- Dark matter, which contains the "missing mass" that's needed to explain why galaxies stay together, could take any number of forms. The main possible candidates include MACHOS and WIMPS, but there is no shortage ...

Physics / General Physics

created Apr 27, 2010 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (41) | comments 28 | with audio podcast weblog

Laser-based camera can see around corners

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from MIT have developed a camera that can capture images of a scene that is not in its direct line of sight. The camera is equipped with a femtosecond laser, which fires extremely ...

Technology / Hi Tech & Innovation

created Nov 17, 2010 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (21) | comments 11 | with audio podcast weblog

Gravitational lens reveals details of distant, ancient galaxy

Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, University of Chicago scientists working with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have obtained a uniquely close-up look at the brightest gravitationally ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 08, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (21) | comments 29 | with audio podcast

Your vital signs, on camera

You can check a person’s vital signs -- pulse, respiration and blood pressure -- manually or by attaching sensors to the body. But a student in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program is ...

Technology / Engineering

created Oct 04, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (12) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

New research on Japanese quake ominous for Pacific Northwest

Scientists are still unraveling last year's giant Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and some of what they're finding doesn't bode well for the Pacific Northwest.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Feb 21, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (7) | comments 14

Virtual ghost imaging: New technique enables imaging even through highly adverse conditions

Ghost imaging (GI), and its even more oddly named cousin virtual ghost imaging (VGI), seem to contradict conventional wisdom by being able to image an object by simply counting photons in a "light bucket." This non-intuitive ...

Physics / General Physics

created Feb 15, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (7) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Mirror

A mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection. This is different from other light-reflecting objects that do not preserve much of the original wave signal other than color and diffuse reflected light. The most familiar type of mirror is the plane mirror, which has a flat surface. Curved mirrors are also used, to produce magnified or diminished images or focus light or simply distort the reflected image.

Mirrors are commonly used for personal grooming or admiring oneself (in which case the archaic term looking-glass is sometimes still used), decoration, and architecture. Mirrors are also used in scientific apparatus such as telescopes and lasers, cameras, and industrial machinery. Most mirrors are designed for visible light; however, mirrors designed for other types of waves or other wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation are also used, especially in non-optical instruments.

For more information about Mirror, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.