mirrors computerized to follow the sun during the day. Solar cooking involves a similar use of a parabolic mirror. Two types of images exist in nature: real and virtual. In a real image, the light rays actually come from the image. In a virtual image, they appear to come from the reflected image - but do not. For example, the virtual image of an object in a flat mirror is "inside" the mirror, but light rays do not emanate from there. Real images can form "outside" the system, where emerging light rays cross and are caught - as in a Mirage , an arrangement of two concave parabolic mirrors. Mirage 's 3-D illusions are similar to the holograms formed by lasers. THE HYPERBOLA If a right circular cone is intersected by a plane parallel to its axis, part of a hyperbola is formed. Such an intersection can occur in physical situations as simple as sharpening a pencil that has a polygonal cross section or in the patterns formed on a wall by a lamp shade. A sonic boom shock wave has the shape of a cone, and it intersects the ground in part of a hyperbola. It hits every point on this curve at the same time, so that people in different places along the curve on the ground hear it at the same time. Because the airplane is moving forward, the hyperbolic curve moves forward and eventually the boom can be heard by everyone in its path. A hyperbola