Andrew Hicks, a professor at Drexel University, has invented a new type of curved mirror which shows the reflection without inverting it left-right, as normal plane mirrors do. Although this effect can be achieved by placing two mirrors at right angles and looking at them both along the 45 degree bisector (as anyone who’ve ever stayed on a canal boat or similarly small bathroom which uses a double-mirror in the corner will attest – it’s mildly disconcerting), this new invention is a single curved piece of glass. Apparently, some maths is involved: Hicks has “design[ed] computer algorithms to cleverly manipulate the angles of curved mirror surfaces so distortions in the reflection are precisely controlled”.
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Mirror which could eliminate drivers’ blind spot receives US patent
A problem in optics has lead to a US patent for a car side mirror which “eliminates the dangerous ‘blind spot'” and “dramatically increases the field of view with minimal distortion” by finding approximate solutions for “the problem of controlling a single ray bundle with a single reflector”.