On 16 June, 04:25, Tom Sherman °_°
wrote:
aka Jobst Brandt wrote:



Carl Fogel wrote:

http://www.niquette.com/puzzles/cornrefp.htm

Cheers,

That item is interesting in a few ways. *Unlike optical engineers, the
writer chooses to call a "cube corner" (trihedral) reflector, a
"corner cube" in a jargon that should include "shell eggs" instead of
"egg shells", or "tread tires" instead of "tire treads" as is common
in English for compound words. *This is often a flag that something
else going on than rational discussion.

Beyond that, the writer is apparently unaware that road signs, Botts
dot lane dividers, and spot reflectors, those 3-inch round, red,
yellow, and blue plastic reflectors in a two screw hole metal frame
use cube corners and serve well as safety devices.

And found in your local hardware store at reasonable prices.



Overlooked is that
these cube corners do not have perfect 90° corners so they reflect a
diverging beam that does not go only back to the light source. *If
that were not so, road markings wold not be visible in headlight
beams.

This is not new. *AAA formerly made STOP signs of porcelain coated
steel signs using glass retro reflectors. *These were the earliest
reflective road signs on our highways and are collector's items today.

*http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/clt/1212893604.html

The same goes for Scotchlite that one should not overlook as a good
safety reflector. *What is more annoying are the many HID lights with
nearly collimated illumination that illuminate road signs poorly,
signs that are not in the middle of the traffic lane. *To make up for
that, these lights on cars and bicycles are blinding to oncoming
traffic until they are close enough that the collimated beam misses
the approaching observer.

You'll notice that they are most irritatingly blinding when still far
away and less so at close range... unless it is one of those bicyclist
who aim their light at oncoming observers to demonstrate their
powerful equipment, mostly in daylight... and how safely equipped.

Automotive HID lights are also very irritating when being tail-gated at
night.


Stick a couple of white cube corner array panels to a raincoat and
hang it on the back of your drivers seat.