Reflection

Can anyone explain in simple terms what the hell "Reflection" is supposed to be?

Professor was too lazy to teach properly.

The laws of physics aren't physical objects themselves; the type int is not an integer. Similarly, the rules and entities of a programming language that determine how programs work are not values in those programs. Reflection crosses that border by introducing objects that represent concepts from a higher level, providing a program with knowledge about the language it's in and itself. Examples: Reflection could let a program ask values for their types or for operations defined on them, or it could let a program manipulate its own symbol table.