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Refraction is the bending of light (it also happens with sound, water and other waves) as it passes from one transparent substance into another. This bending by refraction makes it possible for us to have lenses, magnifying glasses, prisms and rainbows. Even our eyes depend upon this bending of light.
Jun 7, 2023 · Red light waves bend the least, so their path stays closer to a straight line. That leaves red at the top of the rainbow. Violet light waves bend the most when passing through the prism, so that hue dips down to the bottom. The other colors of the rainbow end up in between red and violet, based on how much their waves bend.
Diffraction of sound waves and of light waves will be discussed in a later unit of The Physics Classroom Tutorial. Reflection, refraction and diffraction are all boundary behaviors of waves associated with the bending of the path of a wave. The bending of the path is an observable behavior when the medium is a two- or three-dimensional medium.
The tendency of a ray of light to bend one direction or another is dependent upon whether the light wave speeds up or slows down upon crossing the boundary. The speed of a light wave is dependent upon the optical density of the material through which it moves. For this reason, the direction that the path of a light wave bends depends on whether ...
The light enters the water (at the curved side of the dish) along the normal line; no bending occurs upon entry. The light continues through the water along a straight line until it reaches the boundary with air (at the flat side of the dish). The angle of incidence in the water is approximately 39°. At this angle, the light refracts out of ...
The speed of light is greater in medium 1 than in medium 2 in the situations shown here. (a) A ray of light moves closer to the perpendicular when it slows down. This is analogous to what happens when a lawn mower goes from a footpath to grass. (b) A ray of light moves away from the perpendicular when it speeds up.
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Nov 14, 2024 · The amount of bending of a light ray as it crosses a boundary between two media is dictated by the difference in the two indices of refraction. When light passes into a denser medium, the ray is bent toward the normal. Conversely, light emerging obliquely from a denser medium is bent away from the normal. In the special case where the incident ...
