Reflecting Instrument
Reflecting instruments are those that use mirrors to enhance their ability to make measurements. In particular, the use of mirrors permits one to observe two objects simultaneously while measuring the angular distance between the objects. While they are used in many professions, they are primarily associated with celestial navigation, as the need to solve navigation problems, in particular the problem of the longitude, was the primary motivation in their development.
Read more about Reflecting Instrument: Objectives of The Instruments, Early Reflecting Instruments, The Octant, The Sextant, Types of Sextants
Famous quotes containing the words reflecting and/or instrument:
“Some may find comfort in reflecting that the distinction between an eliminative and an explicative physicalism is unreal.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Whilst Marx turned the Hegelian dialectic outwards, making it an instrument with which he could interpret the facts of history and so arrive at an objective science which insists on the translation of theory into action, Kierkegaard, on the other hand, turned the same instruments inwards, for the examination of his own soul or psychology, arriving at a subjective philosophy which involved him in the deepest pessimism and despair of action.”
—Sir Herbert Read (1893–1968)