Three mutually perpendicular mirrors reverse a ray's direction when it encounters all three. With orthonormal normals , write the reflections as , , . Their orthogonal projection matrices have pairwise products zero and sum to by the resolution of the identity in an orthonormal basis. The product of the three reflections is therefore . It reverses every incident direction independently of the order in which the mirrors are met. Real apertures restrict which incoming rays actually reach all three reflecting faces. Such retroreflectors provide the returning-light geometry in lunar laser ranging.
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