Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In optics, the law is used in ray tracing to compute the angles of incidence or refraction, and in experimental optics to find the refractive index of a material. The law is also satisfied in meta-materials, which allow light to be bent "backward" at a negative angle of refraction with a negative refractive index.
The user may choose to replace the inclination angle by its complement, the elevation angle (or altitude angle), measured upward between the reference plane and the radial line—i.e., from the reference plane upward (towards to the positive z-axis) to the radial line. The depression angle is the negative of the elevation angle.
In land navigation, azimuth is usually denoted alpha, α, and defined as a horizontal angle measured clockwise from a north base line or meridian. [5] [6] Azimuth has also been more generally defined as a horizontal angle measured clockwise from any fixed reference plane or easily established base direction line. [7] [8] [9]
When dealing with a beam that is nearly parallel to a surface, it is sometimes more useful to refer to the angle between the beam and the surface tangent, rather than that between the beam and the surface normal. The 90-degree complement to the angle of incidence is called the grazing angle or glancing angle. Incidence at small grazing angles ...
Geodetic latitude and geocentric latitude have different definitions. Geodetic latitude is defined as the angle between the equatorial plane and the surface normal at a point on the ellipsoid, whereas geocentric latitude is defined as the angle between the equatorial plane and a radial line connecting the centre of the ellipsoid to a point on the surface (see figure).
Two angles that share terminal sides, but differ in size by an integer multiple of a turn, are called coterminal angles. The reference angle (sometimes called related angle) for any angle θ in standard position is the positive acute angle between the terminal side of θ and the x-axis (positive or negative).
Note that when this definition is used, the connection between the numerical aperture and the acceptance angle of the fiber becomes only an approximation. In particular, "NA" defined this way is not relevant for single-mode fiber. [7] [8] One cannot define an acceptance angle for single-mode fiber based on the indices of refraction alone.
The angle θ and axis unit vector e define a rotation, concisely represented by the rotation vector θe.. In mathematics, the axis–angle representation parameterizes a rotation in a three-dimensional Euclidean space by two quantities: a unit vector e indicating the direction of an axis of rotation, and an angle of rotation θ describing the magnitude and sense (e.g., clockwise) of the ...