Refraction Definition and 751 Threads

Homework Statement The length of each side of an opaque cubic container is 5 cm and a coin is placed at the center of the base as shown. At this instant, the observer is unable to see the coin. However, the coin can just be seen when the container is fully filled with liquid A. Find the...

A tank whose bottom is a mirror is filled with water to a depth of 61.0 cm. A small fish floats motionless 21.0 cm under the surface of the water. (a) What is the apparent depth of the fish when viewed at normal incidence? (b) What is the apparent depth of the image of the fish when...

I am taking a physics class and need to explain why we can hear better at night than during the day.

I've basically read that refraction happens because when a part of a light wave enters a medium where it displaces faster or slower at an angle, the part in the new medium "bends" the light wave because of the change of velocity, basically "turning" the whole light wave. I've made two diagrams...

Say one had three intense laser pulses and one weak reference pulse coming together on the surface of a thin nonlinear medium as if coming from the corners of a square. The three intense laser pulses mix, and there will be the third order mixing k1+k2-k3 or k1-k2+k3 or whatever coming out in the...

what would be some sources of error in a lab to find the refractive index of a prism? This lab was done by use of optical pins and glass prism.

A definition for the normal in reflection and refraction?

Homework Statement A lens is a transparent refracting medium bounded by two spherical surfaces.R1 and R2 are radii of two surfaces. Homework Equations Will the Radii R1 and R2 will be same or different ? The Attempt at a Solution I hope that they are same, otherwise there won't...

Homework Statement Revered members, Please see my attachment which deals with refraction of light through a prism. PQ is incident ray, QR is refracted ray and RS is emergent ray. i1,i2 are angles of incidence. i1 is angle of incidence, but how i2 qualifies to angle of incidence. Similarly how...

Is the index of refraction for LCP/RCP light any different from that for linearly polarized light?

One image should be formed by rays that go directly through the bubble and another image is formed by reflected light that hits the bubble. n1 = 1 n2 = 1.5 R = -7.5 CM so = 5 cm If n1 = n2, then si would equal 15 cm as measured from the second vertex on the concave surface. However, they're...

I am a very conceptual kind of person and I'm trying to understand refraction, but after all my reading I'm still having some fundamental gaps that are preventing me from fully grasping it. (All of these questions are especially pertaining to how light waves refract.) Here's what I don't...

1-when a light ray falls on a piece of glass,it refracts. which of the following concepts doesn't change : speed-frequency-wavelength indeed speed does change because of changing the medium but frequency doesn't . what causes wave length to change?change in speed?(V=freq*wavelength) right?do...

when light rays fall perpendicularly on a separating surface between two media it doesn't refract according to Snell's law and it is the same with sound waves how to prove something like that mathematically?? Thanks in advance

I'm not understanding how to setup/pictorialize this problem. I've done several very simple problems determining the index of refraction, but I'm confused on this one for some reason. http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n149/camarolt4z28/Untitled.png

In the diagram, there are two light rays that start from the same plane and fall on another plane which is parallel to the first one. The light ray P goes through a medium of higher refractive index than vacuum/air and refracts. So, which one of them will reach the second plane first? Ray P will...

If a light travels from A to B and there's a plane of glass in between the two points, will the total time it takes to make the journey be different than if there was no glass? If light slows down in glass, then I guess the answer would be yes, but I've read that the index of refraction is more...

Hi, Okay, to my understanding refraction of a wave occurs when a certain wave passes through two different mediums that vary in density, causing the wavelength of that certain wave to change--whether it elongates or shrinks. So am I misunderstanding something? Also, in my textbook it asserts...

Homework Statement This is from hand and finch. We proved in the previous problem that (using euler lagrange equation): x=\int_0^y\frac{dy}{\sqrt{\left(\frac{n[y]}{n_0}\right)-1}} where n_0 is the refractive index at y=0 and x=0. The ray enters horizontally. As an actual computation...

Hello. I've heard from someone that beam diffraction can be explained as the result of phase shift in a dielectric changing the pattern of maxima that we see as the "beam". I would love to see the math of this worked out- can anyone direct me to an appropriate resource? I've searched far and...

A friend of mine and I were discussing particle states during exam revision and the refraction of light came up. His question was, 'how does light know to bend in a medium'? My shot at the answer was that the individual photon that comes into the medium doesn't 'know' to change trajectory...

Homework Statement On the wet road / asphalt / there is a oily stain,with refraction coeff 1.4 .Sunlight lights up the grease perpendicular .What colour will be a stain with thickness of d = 250 nm ? The water's refraction coeff is 1.33 Homework Equations Since we are asked what colour...

Hello! so this is for a physics photo contest. i have to do a little write up and i'd really like for my information to be accurate. http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u43/ninjanamine/115-5.jpg?t=1304830133 the physics part is the orange tree in the water droplet (refraction of light)...

a wave will be diffracted as it passes by an object. in the case of light passing through a slit experiment, why isn't the probablility function of the associated photon(s) "collapsed" by its interaction with the edge of the slit? a wave will be refracted if it enters a new medium. what...

Homework Statement An EM wave travels in vacuum and incidents on a dialectric material in the XZ plane. The wave's polarization is in the \hat{y} direction. Prove that the polarization of both reflected and refracted waves are too along the \hat{y} axis. Homework Equations The...

Homework Statement The radius of curvature of spherical surface is 10 cm. The spherical surface separates two media of refractive indices 1.1 and 1.3 as shown in Figure. The medium of refractive index 1.3 extends upto 78 cm from the spherical surface. A luminous point object O is at the...

Homework Statement Light is originally traveling through air and then enters water with an index of refraction of 1.32. Angle in air at interface is 69 degrees with respect to normal. If thickness of water is 2.3 km, how long does it take in microseconds (1 x 10-6 s) to cross water? Hint: light...

I'm stuck on a homework problem. It states the wavelength is 600 nm and the glass lens has an index of refraction of 1.40. Find the index of refraction for the coating and the required thickness. I've googled around, but I'm not sure what equations I should be using. I got 1.183 for the...

Refraction phenomenon! If Light rays fall on a transparent glass then they get refracted! They first get absorbed by the electrons and then to another electron and so on till it emerges out of the glass! But y does the light travel in straight path in the glass itself...how do the electrons...

Why does light refract between the two mediums when transferring from one to another? And why is the refractive index different for different wavelenths/frequencies? Thanks in advance, fawk3s

I've looked into refraction of light, and I understand the basic principles thoroughly, but there are a few things that I don't understand, if you know any of the answers to these questions, please help me: 1.) Why does light bend when it slows down instead of just continuing on in the same...

Homework Statement This was for a lab experiment, and I'm still not sure how this all fits together. We were supposed to use snell's law to find the index of refraction for the lab bench. We measured from the top of the bench to our eye level, and to the center of the bright spot seen...

1. A 1 cm tall object sits 6cm to the left of a converging lens, f = 10 cm. A flat plane mirror sits 2 cm to the right of the lens. Light passes through the lens, reflects off the mirror, then back through the lens. Where is the final image? Real or Virtual? Upright or inverted? How big is it...

Homework Statement In a lab we did, we verified Snell's Law of Refraction by measuring the index of refraction for water. We filled a plastic half-circle with water and drew a line normal to the flat side. We measured an angle 30 degrees from the normal line (called the incident ray). We...

Homework Statement Equilateral triangle prism (angles all 60 degrees) made of crown glass. Index of refraction ranges from 1.486 for longest visible wavelengths to 1.556 for the shortest. What is range of refraction angles for the light transmitted into air through the right side of the...

Light of wavelength 680 nm in air enters water making an angle of 40 degrees with the normal. Find the angle of refraction and the wavelength of light in water. I found the angle of refraction, but I don't know how to calculate the wavelength with this information.

Homework Statement I'm not sure if this can be answered without the picture but I can't get it posted. The problem gives theta(incident) and theta(r). It's a basic refraction through a transparent plastic piece. It askes for the index of regraction of this material. Homework Equations...

I've looked into refraction and diffraction of light, but there are a few things that I don't understand, if you know any of the answers to these questions, please help me: 1.) Why does light bend when it slows down instead of just continuing on in the same direction after being absorbed...

Homework Statement A point object is placed at distance of 40 cm from a composite refracting slab whose one face is silvered as shown. The separation between the object and its final image is (100 – k)cm. Find the value of k. The Attempt at a Solution I got the separation as...

Homework Statement At what distance below the surface of a lake will a fish have a 180 degree field view above the water surface (if the fish is looking up toward the surface of the lake) ? -Assume the index of refraction for water to be 1.33 and that of air to be 1.00 Homework...

Homework Statement White light is shone into an equalateral prism of 60 degrees (we are only concerned with red and blue) at 30 degrees normal to one side. See diagram. Find the angle of separation between blue and red light as it exits the prism. My question is there an easier way to find...

Hello everyone, hope you can help me! I am doing research involving illumination of an object in a cylindrical acrylin tube filled with water using a Nd:Yag laser. Homework Statement I am trying to figure out the refraction of the laser as it passes from air through the curved acrylic then...

Homework Statement Index of refraction of air is being treated as 1, index of refraction for water is 1.33. W is given as 6.1 cm, the problem is to find H. Homework Equations By Snell's Law, n1sin\Theta1=n2sin\Theta2. We can also use at least one of the trigonometric equations...

Homework Statement A child is standing at the edge of a swimming pool and looks straight down into the pool, where he sees a coin resting on the bottom. The coin appears to be 2.0m directly below the water's surface. How deep is the pool at the location of the coin? The index of refraction...

Homework Statement Identify the following as an example of Refraction, Diffraction, or Interference 1) Rainbow pattern on a compact disk 2) The floating blotches in our eyes 3) Rainbow pattern on a beetle's back 4) The dark bands seen a a window screen Homework Equations...

what causes the light to bend in the following vidio? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBQ8fh_Fp04&playnext=1&list=PL993D6B3429F14C8A i think its refraction.

Homework Statement If we have 3 materials with the same thickness but different indices of refraction (1st= 1.33, 3rd=2.419) which would take the longest time for light to pass through? Why? Homework Equations n/a The Attempt at a Solution I want to say it's the third one simply...

when light is reflected on a surface, there is always going to be some absorbsion by the reflective material. what I'm curious to find out is whether the losses in refraction are compareable? is it just dependant on the transparency of the material?

Homework Statement Archimedes left his gold crown lying on the bottom of his partially filled bathtub. Although he did not know Snell's Law in fact he thought it was Smell's Law (they don't bathe very often back then), or even that the refractive index of dirty bath water was 1.35, he did...

Homework Statement White light is incident onto a 30.0[deg] prism at the 40.0[deg] angle shown in the figure. Violet light emerges perpendicular to the rear face of the prism. The index of refraction of violet light in this glass is 2.00% larger than the index of refraction of red light. At...