Refraction and Snell's law

In the last two days of class we learnt about the Absolute Index of Refraction, Snell's law and Finding Lateral Displacement.

- The speed of light in a material varies with the density of the material. The number tells us the density of a material is called the index of refraction.

- Changes in the light that are caused by the light entering different materials is called refraction.

n=c/v

n - absolute index of refraction

c - 3.0 x 10(to the power of 8), speed of light in vacuum

v - speed of light in a given material

The higher the index of refraction for a material/medium the more dense it is, therefore the slower the light travels.

Ex: calculate the speed of light in lucite.

n=c/v

v=?

c=3.0 x 10(to the power of eight.. no idea how to do that)

n=1.52

v=c/n v=3.0 x 10^8/ 1.52

v=1.97 x 10^8 m/s

Snell's law

n1 (sin 0i) = n2 (sin 0R)

n = index of refraction for each substance

0i = angle of incidence

0R = angle of refraction

sorry i couldn't keep going but we had valleyball practice and left early for Rosetown because the roads were bad