Reflection Definition and 966 Threads

In thinking about the particle in an infinite square well, it the commonly espoused boundary conditions of ψ(0) = 0 and ψ(L) = 0 seem somewhat arbitrary. What in nature forces the wave function to vanish at the boundaries? If the particle can't escape and there is no energy loss, why not...

Hi. I want a figure, human, to be reflected on the other side of a plexiglass. Simple enough. But i want the glass to be positioned exactly at 90 degrees, but I want the figure not to reflect directly over thr glass but to be reflected on the other side, as if I've put the glass in a 45 degree...

What if we could see the past, not just through history books, but in real-time? Imagine placing a mirror on the Sun, reflecting its light, and using a super-powerful microscope to observe Earth’s past. It sounds like a science fiction dream, but it’s a mind-bending thought experiment that could...

So I was able to find out quite easily the image distance after the first refraction and the corresponding magnification. Employing Cartesian convention ##1/v - 1/u = 1/f## Substituting the values gives us: ##v_1 = +60cm ## ## m_1 = -3 ## Thus the height of the image below the principal axis...

I just want to make sure I'm doing this right. I know how to do the rotation, but reflection isn't demonstrated in the text. From what I'm seeing in the book, it seems like you take the matrix and simply multiply it by ##\begin{bmatrix} x \\ y \end{bmatrix} ## Assuming that's the case, I get...

Can anyone explain why we are having this strange reflection on our outside wall, from the sun hitting our bedroom window?

I'm new to this subject so bear with me and I have a salad in my head. I have some fundamental question regarding wave reflection/transmission. Lets say I have a flexible steel cable connected to an end support (pillar) and waves are induced in that cable. My goal is to get the maximum amount of...

Why does the phase of the reflected wave from a denser medium change?

For this, The solution is I have doubt where they got the reflection probability formula from. Someone may know how to find it. I think that ##R + T = 1##. But I'm not sure where the transmission probability formula comes from either. Kind wishes

Dapparent = Dreal / n Dapparent = 181.2 / 1.54 = 117.66 cm the total distance from the mirror to the diver is: do = 193 cm + 117.66 cm = 310.66 cm As the object is in front of the convex mirror, do = -310.66 cm f = -R/2 = -222.4 / 2 = -111.2 cm 1 / f = 1 / do + 1/di 1 / -111.2 = 1 / -310.66 +...

Hello, I am currently simulating phase change due to reflection on gold (Au) using Ansys FDTD. My setup includes using a Frequency Domain Field and a Power monitor to observe the angle of the E-field in x-polarization. However, the phase change tendencies I'm observing do not match those in my...

Hello, I'm trying to build a helmet-mounted display. Basically a HUD that is contained fully within a helmet. I am not experienced with optics though and can only sift through what the internet has to offer. I don't want it to be a "put your phone down next to an angled piece of polycarbonate"...

I think the given solution is wrong. The lens forms image at ##(+75,0)## which is ##25 cm## from pole of the convex mirror which acts as virtual object for mirror. It is true that the reflected ray is rotated by ##2\theta## as in case of plane mirror. Rotation of Spherical Mirrors But that...

The following photo was taken of a mirror in my hotel room in Dublin, Ireland a month ago. This mirror has two individual panes, I assume silvered differently. Why? Is the magnification of the left pane intentional, a mounting effect or a consequence? I appreciate whatever you may have to...

What I mean is that how would someone see light from something like a flashlight in a tunnel? The idea of light rebounding like a ball against a wall I do understand. What I would like to apply this to is graphics programming. the objects that I would simulate this for are puddles on the floor...

I must add, that, when used in a lit space, or in daylight, spraying before the mirror does not make any light rays visible. Is it simply a matter of light scattering? Also, I am not sure whether this question belongs here or in classical physics.

Hi, I am wondering why reflected rays are not considered with lenses? If a Ray strikes a surface another is reflected off that striking point; however, this is not added when studying lenses, only refracted rays are considered. Is there any law which gives the ratio of reflected and refracted...

I thought I maybe need to find a way to calculate the refractive index (n) and using that calculating the velocity and then the time but I haven't managed to figure out how to get the refractive index? Would love your help.

I tried solving it in this way, distinguishing 3 cases and passing the first ray through the point located at a greater distance from the vertex of the angle formed by the two mirrors: 1) the angle of incidence of the ray on the mirror inclined 45° to the horizontal is 45° or 0°: in the first...

If the Sunlight lets say would go off, exactly how long would astronomers on Earth still see sunlight reflected on the surface of Mercury, Venus, Mars, the asteroids, Jupiter Saturn, etc.? I mean Sun goes dark at 0:00 from the point of view of Earth-based observers. At that exact moment, if...

Zero does not have an inverse. And y=0 does not have an inverse. Does the wave form y=0 for all x have an inverse?

Over each eye is a linear polariser and they are orthogonal to each other. So I conclude from the experiment that the polarisation must have been rotated by 90° by the mirror. That reminded my of phase plates but they only work because their refractive indix depends on the angle. Along two...

My textbook derives the condition for bright and dark fringes on an air wedge by assuming that the reflected and refracted rays have a path difference of pi. Hence the conditions for bright and dark fringes end up being the opposite of what is expected. However I did not really understand the...

Where do the laws of reflection, refraction, and Snell's law come from in geometric optics? Are they derivable from basic laws of physics?

Hi all! I'm sitting in the office on what would normally be a dive day so I'm slightly over observant. The sun is coming in heavy through my window, and holding my iPhone I began playing with the reflection on my office wall it produced. The reflection at first was no different then any light...

Hello : Have a question regarding the mathematical model of reflective curve where could i find information on it ? (pdf , webpages , ebooks ,...etc ) Other than Wikipedia Best Regards HB

can you theoretically put a mirror in space, take a photo of earth/dirts reflection and see it in the past?

Hello, Is there a mirror that will reflect light in parallel trajectories ? If yes, is the reflected light in sync, and will all beams hit a flat surface simultaneously ? Thank you

If the question had mentioned ##\overrightarrow{E}## instead of ##E_\bot##, then we could have used ##\overrightarrow{B}=\dfrac{1}{v}\widehat{k}\times \overrightarrow{E}## to get the direction of the magnetic field. But the question had only mentioned ##E_\bot##. To my understanding, knowing...

I use Reichenbach synchronisation. The one-way speed of light (OWSOL) in the x and y-direction is ##\frac{c}{2\epsilon}## and in the reverse direction it is for both ##\frac{c}{2(1-\epsilon)}## such that the average round trip speed of light is ##c##. For any choice of ##\epsilon## the physical...

I know that standing waves form in an open organ pipe. Since, standing waves can only form from superposition of original wave and reflected wave, so there must be a reflected wave in an open organ pipe. But I fail to understand how sound wave can reflect at the open end of organ pipe.

What causes reflection on the atomic level? I believe that the interactions of light and the electrons of a body take at least very very small amount of time. The time is probably negligible but does that time even exist or does the reflection instantly happen.

For quite some time I was under the mistaken impression that the specular reflection of objects from the calm surface of still water forms an image that is the same as the image I see except it's upside down. That is not the case. In the picture below* I have circled in white a couple of...

I presume that some kind of absorption occurs when the sunset is reflected on the water, but can anyone describe this in more detail?

A fairly focused beam of light incident on a CD projects a clearly visible interference pattern onto a screen. May I infer that it has good (or at least enough) spatial coherence? This property is evident, for example, in a lens-focused beam of light produced by a LED or by a ray of sunlight...

I know for a wave moving from left to right, ##\psi_i = Ae^{i(\omega t - k_1x)}## The first reflection where ##Z_1## is ## R_{12}Ae^{i(\omega t - k_1x)}## The second reflection. The wave moves from 2 to the limit between 2 and 3 then reflect... Thus, ##T_{12}R_{23}T_{21} Ae^{i(\omega t - k_1 x...

It is well known that one can solve incident an reflective wave in homogeneous linear media by matching PDE boundary conditions. In the electrical engineering community, one solves similar problem using smith chart and scattering parameters for 1-dimensional propapation of TEM modes in...

I need to simulate mach reflection with mach stem generation using on Ansys Fluent. The wedge angle is of 22deg at Mach 5.

Hello, Something has made me confused after studying the Snell equations these days. Regarding the Balanis Advanced engineering electromagnetic( the pages have been attached), and based on that the reflection and transmission coefficient can be complex I need to rewrite the (5-23a) again...

the angle of incidence at A is 40°, then why did the answer key say "angle of incidence at A is just less than 90°". it is obvious that 40° is quite far from 90° right?

My thoughts so far: a. Since the critical angle occurs at the origin for the given parameters I would imagine that the maximum power reflected would be 100% since at the critical angle ##\theta_t = \frac \pi 2## and ##r_ {\perp} = r_{\parallel} = 1##. I do not know how I might go about finding...

So first I looked at where the image of the fish appeared to be when it went through the water surface. since we can assume the water is flat, R is infinity, so n1/p=-n2/q. plugging in the values (n1=1.29, n2=1, p=3.5) I get q=-0.3686. So the image of the fish appears at 0.369 above the...

When we are talking about Bloch's theorem and also the tight-binding approximation, we can use them to help finding eigenstates of a system. However, I am so confused how to apply it in this case (below is my homework) and don't even know how to start it... All I understand about the Bloch's...

I hope this is not a stupid question but I attach a photo of a reflection of a square double glazed window showing on a wall opposite the window. Could someone please explain to me what is happening here. I presume the outer circular reflection is showing the extent of the suns rays and the...

Consider polarized light crossing a sharp boundary between two volumes, each of a different but uniform refraction index ##n_1## or ##n_2##. Prove that the sum of the transmission and reflection coefficients of this light ##R+T=1##, where $$R \equiv {I_R \over I_I} = \left( {E_{0_R} \over...

Hey guys, I'm new to the physicsforums. I wanted to share some videos I made and see if anyone was interested or wanted to discuss what they see. In this video I show in a manner in which is VERY easy to see, that a reflective surface will reflect not just light but also radio waves (and most...

Attached is section 33.7 from my book, which introduces Huygen's principle in order to derive the law of reflection. I am more used to the ray model rather than the wave model, so I'm constantly going to try to relate everything back to rays. Making this connection also helps with completeness...

I started to do this, but I'm not sure my thinking is good.

Hello there. I set up the problem like this, I have a wave incident from air on the anti-reflective coating consisting of: ##\tilde {\vec E_I} (z,t) = \tilde E_{0_I} e^{i(k_1z- \omega t)} \hat x## ##\tilde {\vec B_I} (z,t) = \frac 1 v \tilde E_{0_I} e^{i(k_1z- \omega t)} \hat y## This wave gets...