A parabolic (or paraboloid or paraboloidal) reflector (or dish or mirror) is a reflective surface used to collect or project energy such as light, sound, or radio waves.

The parabolic reflector transforms an incoming plane wave traveling along the axis into a spherical wave converging toward the focus.

So, very interesting parallels between the biological and the engineering worlds. And interestingly, this turns out the stomatopod saddle turns out to be the first described biological hyperbolic paraboloid spring.

But the more the US and authoritarian Arab regimes attacked the station, the more the station became a reflector of some of the radical Islamic trends.

) Surrounded by a U 238 reflector tamper, the Fat Man's pit was brought close to critical mass by the neutron reflecting properties of the U 238.

In 1876 a French engineer, A. Mangin, invented what has come to be called the Mangin mirror, a concave glass reflector with the silver surface on the rear side of the glass.

Before the light bulb was invented, people had figured out how to put a reflector behind it, focus it a little bit put lenses in front of it, focus it a little bit better.

Despite the theoretical advantages of the reflector design, the difficulty of construction and the poor performance of the speculum metal mirrors being used at the time meant it took over 100 years for them to become popular.

So we created this genetic algorithm to try this out, we made a model in XL of a multi surface reflector, and an amazing thing evolved, literally evolved, from trying a billion cycles, a billion different attempts, with a fitness function that defined how can you collect the most light, from the most angles, over a day, from the sun.