When you have an enormous mirror like the one in the world's largest telescope, you want it to offer viewers a pristine image--not something like a circus mirror that distorts the reflection. They have to be perfectly polished when the telescope is assembled.
A new technique has been developed to perforom this precise procedure here in North Central Florida.
In the Technology Spotlight, Hitomi Greenslet, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UF explains to TV 20's David Snyder the principle behind using magnets to do the job.