Reflex

Popular brand of copy paper in Australia, but widely disparaged for it's manufacturer's reputation for using rainforest timber.

Reflex is the name of a color that was used on a special edition VW Beetle. This color was only available during the 2000 model year. The color was an orangey yellow that looked impossibly bright in the sunshine. The kicker with this color was that you could only get it if you ordered your Beetle via the Volkswagen website. The other limited edition color for 2000 was called Vapor.

There are several reflexes that infants exhibit at birth. Some remain for the rest of your life, some disappear at the end of the neonatal period or shortly thereafter. Here is a list of some interesting ones:

Moro Reflex
Palmar Grasp
Eye Blink
Withdrawal
Rooting
Sucking
Swimming
Tonic Neck
Stepping
Babinski Reflex

(Have patience with me, I know most of these links don’t work. I’m working on it)

The reflex was an interesting radio receiver circuit that had a certain vogue amongst constructors of the 1920s and 1930s, until the advent of more efficient vacuum tubes. It enabled the builder to make at least one amplifier tube do double-duty, thus saving on tube count. That's the theory, anyway – in practice, the circuit could be a bit tricky.

Simply put, in a reflex circuit, a tube would be made to amplify not only radio frequencies, but audio frequencies as well. This was accomplished by feeding the audio output of the detector tube back through one of the radio-frequency amplifier tubes. In a superheterodyne arrangement, the audio might be amplified instead by one of the intermediate-frequency tubes. Since the two frequencies were vastly separated in value (one being in the supersonic range, the other in the audible range), and the tube was operated as an amplifier and not a mixer, there was little chance of interference between the two.

At the output of the reflexed tube, radio frequencies went on to the detector, and audio to the power output amplifier tube and loudspeaker. The circuit worked reasonably well, as long as everything stayed in adjustment, which usually required a skilled operator. Given, though, the peculiarities of early tubes and components, the circuit was subject to instability and oscillating, resulting in the circuit doing a poor job of its tasks. In later years, some manufacturers managed to produce moderately stable commercial reflex receivers; but as tubes (and circuits) got better, and cheaper, the circuit fell into disuse.

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There is and was a story about a man, this was in eighty-two or three, just after The Falklands War, who was sitting on the couch in his house in England one late Saturday afternoon, maybe early evening. He was drinking tea. A cup and a saucer. And perhaps distracted a little from his immediate surroundings by the television and whatever was on there. It was a normal couch or it must have been, not set against the wall as is more common now, but out in the middle of the living room.

He had a daughter. Six years old she was then, something like that. Her dad had been away. Quite a while, especially to a child of that age, off at this odd war (not that she would have known that, the oddness or the war). He was a soldier. Tough man. Not to his daughter, but still. Hard business. Must have been odd in itself (not just the war), being back home. On the couch on a Saturday. Drinking tea, cup and saucer.

Our own boy gets sore legs. He must get it from me because I used to have just the same. A terrible aching and in the middle of the night. Nothing to look at but it hurts a lot. Helps when you've had something someone else has got. Otherwise you can think a little that they're making more of a fuss than's needed. Although he is a good sleeper. And ten. At ten you're not thinking of being up at three for the fun of it. Not if you're a good sleeper.

She came up behind him, she must have done, of course she did. Maybe had seen it on a film on the television. He was probably watching for the football results. He'd been in The Falklands doing something or other, but not the regular soldiering. Member of the Special Air Service, SAS, top of the tree, very particular operations. Of course it's violent. It's war and fighting, it's all violent. Killing and dying. Fucking terrifying whoever you are.

She was at the back of the couch. Behind him. Quiet and light footfalls being small, probably in slippers. On a carpet. She reached out her hands and put them around his head, one either side, and onto his face. Like she must have seen. That thing where you say Guess who? Often a lover to another. Husband and wife or before that.

I woke up because my wife was speaking and then he was talking, the ten year old, but for the first second or so I didn't know it was him or anyone at all. Was dark and three o'clock. And I felt adrenalin before I knew what it was. Someone in the room. Middle of the night. Wife was saying something in her voice.

He hadn't even turned around before the tea cup, nice china, almost delicate, thin handle, was smashed and shattered grinding into his daughter's face. Full on and in and with no stopping. More than thirty years ago now. Broke her nose and a cheekbone, blinded her completely. I always wonder if she still lives at home.

Reflex
by Steven Gould
Tor, 2004

Reflex is the sequel to Jumper; these books will be more enjoyable and be easier to follow if read in chronological order. However, this story takes place ten years later on, and while it does continue a major plot arc, you're not jumping into the middle of an ongoing adventure if you start here.

This story follows Davy and his wife Millie -- but mostly not together. The story starts with Davy being kidnapped, which accidently strands Millie in a safe-house that is inaccessible to anyone who cannot teleport. She cannot teleport. In trying to escape she almost dies, but saves herself by spontaneously and unexpectedly teleporting. This opens up a lot of new possibilities, and new troubles. A large portion of the book follows Millie's investigation of Davy's abduction, with the help of her newfound ability.

The rest of the book is about Davy being tortured and experimented on. A mysterious and very powerful organization really wants to know how teleportation works, and is more than willing to do some invasive medical research on the only person who can do it. Davy is hardly passive during this process, and he has some tricks up his sleeve. So do the bad guys. It's a pretty dark story.

As with Jumper, this is a fast moving and exciting adventure. It fits well with the first novel, being a bit dark, having clever solutions to new problems, and doubling down on making teleportation an interesting power. If you liked Jumper, you should obviously read this as well. The next book is the series is Impulse, although there is also a short story, Shade, that fits between them.

SFQ22

Re"flex (r?"fl?ks), a. [L. reflexus, p. p. of reflectere: cf. F. r'eflexe. See Reflect.]

1.

Directed back; attended by reflection; retroactive; introspective.

The reflex act of the soul, or the turning of the intellectual eye inward upon its own actions. Sir M. Hale.

2.

Produced in reaction, in resistance, or in return.

3. Physiol.

Of, pertaining to, or produced by, stimulus or excitation without the necessary intervention of consciousness.

Reflex action Physiol., any action performed involuntarily in consequence of an impulse or impression transmitted along afferent nerves to a nerve center, from which it is reflected to an efferent nerve, and so calls into action certain muscles, organs, or cells. -- Reflex nerve Physiol., an excito-motory nerve. See Exito-motory.

 

© Webster 1913.

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Re"flex (r?"fl?ks; formerly r?*fl?ks"), n. [L. reflexus a bending back. See Reflect.]

1.

Reflection; the light reflected from an illuminated surface to one in shade.

Yon gray is not the morning's eye, 'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow. Shak.

On the depths of death there swims The reflex of a human face. Tennyson.

2. Physiol.

An involuntary movement produced by reflex action.

Patellar reflex. See Knee jerk, under Knee.

 

© Webster 1913.

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Re*flex" (r?*fl?ks"), v. t. [L. reflexus, p. p. of reflectere. See Reflect.]

1.

To reflect.

[Obs.]

Shak.

2.

To bend back; to turn back.

J. Gregory.

 

© Webster 1913.