Word: mirrored
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...central conundrum confronting designers was this: how to make a telescope mirror that could hold its shape against gravitational sag and gusting winds yet retain the capacity to make rapid adjustments to fluctuating temperatures. As mirror size increases, these two requirements begin to dictate different, and quickly contradictory, solutions. Very thick mirrors resist physical deformation extremely well, but because they retain so much heat, they tend to generate shimmering currents in the cold night air that play havoc with astronomers' observations. Very thin mirrors, on the other hand, have ideal thermal properties but a daunting physical handicap: as the telescope...
These are heady days in the rarefied world of telescope making. Not since the 1934 casting of Mount Palomar's 5-m mirror -- a record size at the time -- has there been more innovation or competition to push the edge of possibility. In the clear air above Hawaii's Mauna Kea, the Keck I Telescope's mammoth 10-m mirror, built of 36 separate segments, is nearing final assembly -- a 10-month process was completed last week. Four years from now it will be joined by the Keck II, an equally monstrous twin. By then, the European Southern Observatory hopes...
...intellectual seeds for this technological renaissance were sown more than a decade ago, when Angel and a handful of other pioneers began contemplating the challenge of building more powerful telescopes. Very quickly, they were forced to consider radical new approaches to mirror design. Simply scaling up old models would have been hopelessly expensive and unwieldy. "A large mirror can't look like a small mirror," explains Angel, "for pretty much the same reason that an elephant can't look like a fly. If it did, its legs would collapse under its own weight...
...poser. Closely related to his friend, the grunter, the poser spends most of his time in front of the mirror. Whether flexing his muscles, straightening his shirt or fixing his hair, the poser seems more interested in picking up dates than in packing up weights. To regain his focus, the poser should spend an evening with an officer of the Radcliffe Union of Students...
...sure, this list is not exhaustive. I have encountered many individuals whose behavior places them in more than on category. For example, the mediator-poser zones out while staring at himself in the mirror, as if frozen by the mere sight of himself in shorts. Others, like the guy who tried to do dumbbell biceps curls while holding a three-month-old infant in the other arm, defy any classification whatsoever. They're just weird...