Snell's law Definition and 142 Threads

Homework Statement Calculating the refraction of index (n) with given information. Homework Equations The Attempt at a Solution I tried to use Snell's Law but I have no idea about how I'm supposed to use it without angles. Instead, question gives distances. Need help very badly.

(8:53, to be precise) They have taken a derivative to analyze the minima of the total time taken. dT/dx = 0. But in reality should it not be 1/v which is a non zero value. What am I missing ?

Homework Statement First question: The waves are approaching at an bearing of N70W, and at N50W, to a coast with a N13ºE orientation. What is the angle of the wave offshore? Answer: 7 degrees and 27 degrees. Second question: The wave is approaching at an angle of 135º. The coast is at 305º...

Homework Statement A ray of white light strikes the surface of a 4.0-cm-thick slab of flint glass (Θ1 = 60°). As the ray enters the glass, it is dispersed into its constituent colors. Estimate how far apart the rays of deepest red and deepest violet light are as they exit the bottom surface...

Homework Statement At the aquarium where you work, a fish has gone missing in a 10.5m -deep, 9.45m -diameter cylindrical tank. You shine a flashlight in from the top edge of the tank, hoping to see if the missing fish is on the bottom. What’s the smallest angle your flashlight beam can make...

Homework Statement A stone lies to the very edge at the bottom of a pool. The pool is filled with water to the top. The person standing three meters away from the pool is 1 meter tall and he can see exactly the half of the stone. Calculate the depth of the pool.Homework Equations Snell's law...

Homework Statement Given a "new type" of optical fiber (index of refraction n = 1.23), a laser beam is incident on the flat end of a straight fiber in air. Assume nair = 1.00. What is the maximum angle of incidence Ø1 if the beam is not to escape from the fiber? (See attached file for...

Hi, I'm new to the forum as I'm struggling to find answers with an internet search. I've seen Snell's Law stated as n sin theta = constant. How does this arise from its more familiar form of n1sintheta1 = n2sintheta2? I can't work it out. Thanks for reading!

Definition/Summary Snell's Law relates the angles of incidence and refraction, for a light ray that passes between two media of different refractive indices. The refractive index of a medium is the speed of light in vacuum divided by the speed of light in the medium: n = c/v. It is the...

Homework Statement I apologize for not utilizing built-in Latex, I'll have to work with that a little more.Question statement: Explain the paths, both transmitted and reflected, that a light ray of 400nm would take if it was incident perpendicular to the bottom face ofo the crystal. If the...

"sinh" in Snell's Law? Homework Statement I'm trying to understand some equations in my AS level textbook about Snell's Law Homework Equations The equations are in the image below The Attempt at a Solution I tried reading up about sinh but I don't fully understand what it is...

Hi, I recently did a experiment in which I measured the intensity of light out of a optical filter at different angles of incidence. The optical filter was designed such that only light of wavelength 405 nm is transmitted. The wavelength of incident light (the laser I used) was 402 nm. My...

Hello everybody! I read that if one of the two materials involved in Snell's law is a conductor, the refraction angle \theta_r is about \pi / 2 and is independent of the incident angle \theta_i (I think \theta_r will be precisely \pi / 2 if the conductor is ideal). My question is: why...

Can someone help me on how to prove Snell's Law using Fermat's principle? I'm not so good with topics about light, so I don't how to start.

On another forum the following question was asked: This was my initial reply: Let: $L$ = distance upstream to the safehouse $W$ = width of the river $v_s$ = swimming speed $v_r$ = running speed All variables above are assumed to be positive. I have set it up as follows...

Homework Statement This is one of my homework questions. I think I have the right answer, but I don't understand how to figure out the "given" angle, so if someone could explain it to me, that would be great! Be sure to look at the picture attached...it's what's tricking me. A prism...

Hi, We know that light changes speed when going from a medium 1 to medium 2 (obviously, they are characterized by different driffactive indexes). Light wavelength doesn't change (same color) during such event. If medium 1 is less dense than mendium2, the speed of light in medium 1 is...

OK, I've looked around the net but there just doesn't seem to be a straightforward answer that doesn't require you to be an electromagnetics guru, so I'm hoping someone on here can help me out. I have a light wave incident to a planar interface, coming from a medium with complex refractive...

Homework Statement There is a diagram in the problem statement so here is a link to the image of the problem: http://imgur.com/KDrRsyO Homework Equations Snell's Law: n_{1} * sin(\theta_{1}) = n_{2} * sin(\theta_{2}) The Attempt at a Solution My attempt using Snell's law...

Does Snell's law apply in refraction when the light ray is along the normal line? Utilizing snell's law, the index of refraction (n) would be zero. nr= ni(sin θi)/sinθr Sin(θi)= 0 therefore, nr=0 However,utilizing the formula for index of refraction (n=c/v), the index of refraction...

Snell's Law - complex angle of refraction (need "complement") I'm tying myself in knots trying to calculate something I think should be very simple. I'm writing/debugging some code at the moment, and I simply don't know if this silly problem is the source of the major errors I'm currently...

Homework Statement Light is incident on an equilateral glass prism at a 45.0 °angle to one face. Calculate the angle at which light emerges from the opposite face. Assume that n = 1.49. θ4 = ? Homework Equations n1 * sin θ1 = n2 * sin θ2 The Attempt at a Solution n1 = 1.00 (air)...

When we talk about Snell's law, and total internal reflection in particular, we usually will draw diagrams as if light is coming off a point in a single, straight line (that bends at an interface, of course). My question is, though, how does this light behave when it's coming off an extended...

Hi people.. Snell's law reads sinθ = (v2/v1)sinβ Suppose that v2/v1 > 1, then we can make sinβ as close to 1 as we like, even close enough to make sinθ>1 as Snell's law states. So what's wrong?

According to the Snell's Law refractive index n21= sin i/sin r, but when we use this equation while having a incident light normal to the surface of lens or any other refracting surface it becomes 0/0. So how can we define Snell's law in this situation?

Snell's Law of Angles says that : sinA/sinB = nB/nA but in order to find critical angles B has to be 90° . I understand that in order to have total internal reflection that nB/nA < 1 but why can't there be a CRITICAL angle when nB/nA > 1 ? sinA would have to be greater than 1 which...

From Snell’s Law equation (2) get the Brewster’s angle formula given by equation (4) when θincident+θrefracted=90°. equation 2: n1 sin θ1 = n2 sinθ2 equation 4: tanθB = n2/n1 This is kind of foreign to me as I haven't studied it yet, not sure how you go from Eq 2 to E4, how does tan come from...

Homework Statement A laser beam of diameter = 3.1mm in air has an incident angle = 26 degrees at a flat air-glass surface.If the index of refraction of the glass is n=1.5, determine the diameter of the beam after it enters the glass. Homework Equations n1sinθ1=n2sinθ2 The Attempt...

Homework Statement A horizontal beam of light enters a 45-90-45 prism at the center of it's long side, as shown below. The emerging ray moves in a direction that is 34˚ below the horizontal. What is the index of refraction for the prism? Homework Equations n_{1}sinø_{1} =...

Homework Statement A beam of light in air is incident on a stack of 4 flat transparent materials with indicies of refraction 1.20, 1.40, 1.32, and 1.28. If the angle of incidence for the beam on the first of the four materials is 60*, what angle does the beam make witht the normal when it...

Hi, Can someone tell me how to find the incident and refractive angles when only the deviation angle is known? For instance, I know that Snells law is n1 sin(i) = n2 sin(r) I know that the materials are air (n1=1) and glass (n2=1.5) And I know that the deviation angle d is 30deg. I can...

hi I understand that Snell's law describe the relationship between the angles of incidence and refraction, when referring to light passing different isotropic media. someone told me that Snell's law describe also the curvature of space time in General Relativity? is that true? if not what are...

A laser beam and a sound wave from directional sources both enter a liquid at an angle of 60 degrees from the horizontal surface of the liquid. The speed of sound in the liquid is 1.8 times that of the speed of sound in air. For light, the refractive index of the liquid is 1.8. What happens...

Homework Statement A light ray is incident from air onto a glass surface with an index of refraction n = 1.56. Find the angle of incidence for which the corresponding angle of refraction is one-half the angle of incidence. Both angles are defined with the normal to the surface. Homework...

This isn't even a homework question but in my textbook there is an example on how to find the angle of deviation in a prism. I understand how they got all the angles listed in the picture but what I cannot understand is how the angle of deviation can be found from 70 - 12 = 58 degrees (answer in...

Homework Statement An underwater scuba diver sees the Sun at an apparent angle of 42.0° above the horizontal. What is the actual elevation angle of the Sun above the horizontal? (Use 1.333 for the index of refraction of water.) The correct answer must be 7.86° above the horizon...

Homework Statement I'm trying to work out what happens why light hits a boundary between two birefringent materials with their optical axis perpendicular. It's hard to describe so I've attached a diagram. The upper wedge has an optical axis pointing upwards, the lower wedge has it coming out...

Homework Statement The electric field of an electromagnetic wave traveling in the dielectric can be written as E = (E0) e(iωt−ikx) where E0 is a constant vector and |k| = [ω(ε)^1/2]/c . Consider an electromagnetic wave traveling in vacuum towards the dielectric at an angle θ to the...

Homework Statement [PLAIN]http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/6030/physicsch3364.png Homework Equations n2θ2 = n1θ1 The Attempt at a Solution To be honest I'm lost from the get go, I'm having trouble with visualizing what part a exactly wants. Part B, I think is just the picture...

So I did a "waves in two depth medium refraction" lab and I measured the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction. So doing the sin i/ sin R, I get the value of 1.22 for all the sets of data. A question asks, do the values (1.22) serve as evidence for or against a particle model...

Homework Statement A beam of light travels through a calcite crystal such that its wave vector makes an angle of 30degrees with the optic axis. Calculate the refractive index experienced by the extraordinary ray if the relative dielectric constants for light polarized parallel and...

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...

Homework Statement The observer in the figure shown below is positioned so thatthe far edge of the empty glass is just visible. When theglass is filled with water, the center of the bottom of the glassis just visible to the observer. Calculate the height H of theglass if its width W=4 cm...

This is first of questions, I may have more, hence the very general title of the thread. I know the basic optics involved, two most important things here are Snell's law and the concept of critical angle - no problems here, even if I am just skimming on the surface. Problems start when I am...

I'm just having a horrendous time trying to figure this problem out. My geometry is really lacking. http://www.screencast.com/users/trinhn812/folders/Jing/media/64c9342a-985a-4bb2-9e29- 98b5b5ebb1ad

I'm wondering where to start for the proof of Snell's Law using Maxwell's equations. Any help in the proper direction would help!

I'm studying optics on my own and have gotten very stuck on page 75 of Klein and Furtak, the unnumbered equation. Specifically, I don't understand why there aren't arbitrary phase factors inserted; the equation does not look general enough. I checked in Jackson, 2nd edition Classical...

Reference for this topic: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=221973 This post discussed the topic, but the last comment was exactly the question I am trying to figure out, and no one responded: I've been teaching myself optics from Klein and Furtak, and spent a long time on...

A piece of gallium phosphide is frozen in ice. a beam of light is directed downward through the ice-gallium phosphide boundary at a 25 degree angle from the normal. The light emerges from the gallium phosphide 12.25 mm away from where it would have had the solid been pure ice. Find the thickness...

Homework Statement Given a three layer model ------------------------------------------------- v_1=1.5km/s ------------------------------------------------- v_2=1.3km/s ------------------------------------------------- v_3=2.0km/s Assume a ray goes through layer 1 and hits the interface...