--On Thursday, January 17, 2002 10:50 PM -0500 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Having radar'd race bikes that only have number plates up front, the > headlight reflector theory is inaccurate.
I've had my doubts about the usefulness of the headlight reflector for this sort of thing. My thoughts are that the reflector is a parabolic shape. This is to take light from a small spherical source at the focal point and bend it such that it comes out more or less in a line. Light comming in to the reflector from the outside will behave the same way, it'll reflect and intersect the filament for the bulb (or nearby). Clearly some retro-reflection occurs (else you wouldn't see 'shiney' when you look at it) but I don't think that it is a huge source of returns. Dunno. Just a theory. Take care, Mike -- Michael Weaver (706)542-6462 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Engineering Services EITS University of Georgia, Athens Ga. )O( Public PGP key: http://www.arches.uga.edu/~weaver/pgp.html
