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In the first part of Lesson 2, we learned that a comparison of the angle of refraction to the angle of incidence provides a good measure of the refractive ability of any given boundary. The more that light refracts, the bigger the difference between these two angles.
When light travels from a medium with a higher refractive index to one with a lower refractive index, Snell's law seems to require in some cases (whenever the angle of incidence is large enough) that the sine of the angle of refraction be greater than one.
The angle that the incident ray makes with the normal line is referred to as the angle of incidence. Similarly, the angle that the refracted ray makes with the normal line is referred to as the angle of refraction .
The amount that a light ray changes its direction depends both on the incident angle and the amount that the speed changes. For a ray at a given incident angle, a large change in speed causes a large change in direction, and thus a large change in angle.
It is expressed mathematically as n 1 sin θ 1 = n 2 sin θ 2, where θ 1 and θ 2 are the angles between the incident ray and the normal and between the refracted ray and the normal, respectively ...
When light travels from a denser to rarer medium with an angle greater than the critical angle, the ray of light does not deviate in its path or does not refract, but it undergoes a reflection known as total internal reflection.
The incoming ray is called the incident ray and the outgoing ray is called the refracted ray. The associated angles are called the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction . Later, we apply Snell’s law to some practical situations.
The incoming ray is called the incident ray and the outgoing ray the refracted ray, and the associated angles the incident angle and the refracted angle. The law of refraction is also called Snell’s law after the Dutch mathematician Willebrord Snell (1591–1626).
For a ray at a given incident angle, a large change in speed causes a large change in direction and thus a large change in angle. The exact mathematical relationship is the law of refraction, or Snell’s law, after the Dutch mathematician Willebrord Snell (1591–1626), who discovered it in 1621.
A refracted ray is transmitted into the second medium and travels in a different direction than the incident ray. The angle that the incident, reflected, and refracted rays make with the surface normal are called the angles of incidence, qi , reflection, qr, and refraction, qt, respectively.