Assignment 26: The Nature of Light

Due: 8:00am on Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Note: To understand how points are awarded, read your instructor's Grading Policy.

Understanding the Propagation of Light

Learning Goal: To understand ray diagrams, as well as basic reflection and refraction problems.

There are two ways of indicating, in a diagram, the path that light follows. One way is by using wavefronts (shown in

blue); the other is by using rays (shown in red) . Wavefronts represent, in a schematic way, the successive peaks of the electromagnetic wave at a specific time. Light is a transverse wave; it moves perpendicular to the wavefronts. Rays are used to indicate the direction of motion of the light. Ray diagrams are typically used in problems where the wave nature of light is not important, as will be the case in geometric optics. Notice in the diagram that the wavefronts get closer together inside of the glass. This is because the speed of light in glass is less than that in air. The frequency of a wave does not change when it propagates through different media, even though its speed may change. (Waves can be neither created nor destroyed at the boundary between different media; hence, the number of waves that strike the boundary per unit time must equal the number of waves that leave the boundary per unit time.) Let be the wave's speed, its wavelength, and its frequency. These quantities are related via the equation that, if the wave speed decreases, the wavelength must also decrease for the frequency to remain constant.
Part A What is the wavelength of light in glass, if its wavelength in air is Hint A.1 How to approach the problem , its speed in air is , and its speed in the glass is ?

. Note

Hint not displayed

Express your answer in terms of ANSWER: = Correct , , and .

The letter is used to denote the speed of light in vacuum. Although the speed of light in air should have been used for this part, the speeds of light in air and vacuum are so similar that they are often used interchangeably. You should always keep this in mind, as problems that specify many significant figures may require you to use the correct speed in air. For the rest of this problem, however, assume that the difference between the speeds of light in air and vacuum is too small to affect your results. Part B The index of refraction for a material is defined to be . Rewrite your answer from Part A in terms of the index of

refraction. Express your answer in terms of ANSWER: = Correct Part C

and .

If red light of wavelength 700 in air enters glass with index of refraction 1.5, what is the wavelength of the light in the glass? Express your answer in nanometers to three significant figures. ANSWER: 467 = Correct

Two important things happen to light when it strikes a transparent boundary: It gets reflected and it gets refracted. When you see your reflection in glass, you are seeing the result of reflection from a transparent boundary. In the figure

, the ray moving toward the air/glass interface is called the incident ray. The ray leaving the boundary in air is called the reflected ray. The ray leaving the boundary inside the glass is called the refracted ray. Reflection from a mirror and reflection from a transparent boundary both obey the law of reflection: , where is the angle of incidence (the angle between the incoming ray and the normal to the surface), and is the angle of

reflection (the angle between the normal line and the reflected ray)
Part D If light strikes the air/glass interface at an angle 32.0 to the normal, what is the angle of reflection, ? Express your answer in degrees to three significant figures. ANSWER: 32 = Correct

The second important effect of light striking a transparent boundary is refraction. Refraction is the bending of light caused by the difference in the speed of light between materials. When light moves into a medium with a higher index of refraction (i.e., lower speed of light), the refracted ray has a smaller angle to the normal than the incident ray. Snell's law gives this angle of

refraction, : is very close to the speed of light in vacuum, you will use Part E

. Since we are assuming that the speed of light in air in this problem.

If light strikes the air/glass interface at an incidence angle of 32.0 index of refraction of glass. Express your answer in degrees to three significant figures. ANSWER: 20.7 = Correct

, what is the angle of refraction, ? Use 1.50 for the

Exercise 33.22
Light is incident along the normal on face of a glass prism of refractive index 1.52, as shown in the figure

. Part A Find the largest value the angle can have without any light refracted out of the prism at face AC if the prism is immersed in air. ANSWER: 48.9 = Correct Part B Find the largest value the angle can have without any light refracted out of the prism at face AC if the prism is immersed in water. ANSWER: 28.7 = Correct

Exercise 33.31
A parallel beam of unpolarized light in air is incident at an angle of 53.0 (with respect to the normal) on a plane glass surface. The reflected beam is completely linearly polarized. Part A

What is the refractive index of the glass? ANSWER: 1.33 = Correct Part B What is the angle of refraction of the transmitted beam? ANSWER: 37.0 = Correct

Exercise 33.36
Three polarizing filters are stacked, with the polarizing axis of the second and third filters at angles of 18.0 and 65.2 , respectively, to that of the first. If unpolarized light is incident on the stack, the light has an intensity of 72.5 passes through the stack. Part A after it

If the incident intensity is kept constant, what is the intensity of the light after it has passed through the stack if the second polarizer is removed? ANSWER: 30.5 = Correct

Problem 33.42
In a physics lab, light with a wavelength of 490 travels in air from a laser to a photocell in a time of 16.9 . When a slab of glass with a thickness of 0.890 is placed in the light beam, with the beam incident along the normal to the parallel faces of the slab, it takes the light a time of 21.2 to travel from the laser to the photocell. Part A What is the wavelength of the light in the glass? Use 3.00108 ANSWER: for the speed of light in a vacuum. Express your answer using two significant figures. = 200 Correct

Problem 33.48
After a long day of driving you take a late-night swim in a motel swimming pool. When you go to your room, you realize that you have lost your room key in the pool. You borrow a powerful flashlight and walk around the pool, shining the light into it. The light shines on the key, which is lying on the bottom of the pool, when the flashlight is held 1.2 above the water surface and is

directed at the surface a horizontal distance of 1.5 from the edge Part A If the water here is 4.0 deep, how far is the key from the edge of the pool?

Express your answer using two significant figures. ANSWER: 4.4 Correct