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Kaleidoscope

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kaleidoscope

an optical toy for producing symmetrical patterns by multiple reflections in inclined mirrors enclosed in a tube. Loose pieces of coloured glass, paper, etc., are placed between transparent plates at the far end of the tube, which is rotated to change the pattern
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

What does it mean when you dream about a kaleidoscope?

The kaleidoscope signifies the fragments that come together to form a whole, perhaps indicating something diverse, such as a situation with varied aspects, or piecing together the parts of a symbolic puzzle.

The Dream Encyclopedia, Second Edition © 2009 Visible Ink Press®. All rights reserved.

kaleidoscope

[kə′līd·ə‚skōp]
(optics)
An optical toy consisting of a tube containing two plane mirrors placed at an angle of 60° and mounted so that a symmetrical pattern produced by multiple reflection is observed through a peephole at one end when objects (such as pieces of colored glass) at the other end are suitably illuminated.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Kaleidoscope

(language)
An object-oriented language which mixes imperative programming and constraint-oriented features. Kaleidoscope was written by Freeman-Benson of the University of Washington, Universite de Nantes, 1989; University of Victoria, 1992. It is similar to Siri and vaguely related to Prose.

Versions: Kaleidoscope '90 and Kaleidoscope '91.

["Kaleidoscope: Mixing Objects, Constraints and Imperative Programming", B.N. Freeman-Benson, SIGPLAN Notices 25(10):77-88 (OOPSLA/ECOOP '90) (Oct 1990)].

["Constraint Imperative Programming", B.N. Freeman-Benson, Ph.D. Thesis, TR 91-07-02, U Wash (1991)].

["Constraint Imperative Programming", Freeman-Benson et al, IEEE Conf on Comp Lang, Apr 1992].
This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Kaleidoscope

 

a tube containing three longitudinally arranged reflecting plates that are mounted at an angle of 60° to one another. At one end, the tube is closed by a piece of frosted glass on which are scattered fragments of multicolored glass that are separated from the remaining tube space by a piece of clear glass; at the other end there is a cap with a round viewing hole. Upon rotation of the tube, which is held horizontally, the fragments are scattered around, forming colored patterns in the triangular central portion of the field of view bordered by the three mirrors. The reflections of the patterns in the mirror plates create a colored, triradially symmetrical design, which is repeated three more times along the edges of the field of view. The kaleidoscope was invented in 1817 by the English physicist D. Brewster; it subsequently became a child’s toy.

The word “kaleidoscope” is frequently used in a figurative sense to emphasize a rapid change of events, phenomena, or persons.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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