The image to the left shows several different optical effects including reflecti
ID: 1867208 • Letter: T
Question
The image to the left shows several different optical effects including reflection, refraction, and image formation.
Question :
Through how many different media does the light from the steel rod travel before it enters your eye?
* Define diffuse reflection, and tell what its role is human vision. Define speculator reflection and point out an example of speculator reflection in the graphic.
* In what ways is the image of the rod distorted by the water, the air, and the curved surface of the glass? In terms of Snell's law explain why.
* Is the distortion of the image the same in the vertical direction as in the horizontal direction? Explain why in terms of the curvature of the glass.
Explanation / Answer
The light from steel rod travels through the following media in order:
1. Water in glass
2. Glass
3. Atmospheric air
Diffuse Reflection:
Diffuse reflection is the reflection of light or other waves away from a top of a plate resembling that a ray incident on the top is dispersed or separated into many rays at different angles compared to just one angle as in the case of typical reflection. The roughness of the top of the plate outcomes in difference in the normals across the surface. Diffuse reflections hence are useful as they suggest that the light incident on a surface is reflected in many directions, which suggests that at least some of the light waves will reach us. The diffuse reflection also helps us more distinctly view the surface due to the dependency of the reflection on the angle. We can differentiate the distinct angles of a surface depending on the strength of light arriving back from it.
Specular Reflection: (It's not Speculator Reflection)
Specular reflection is defined as a glass-like reflection of light from the top of a plate. The incident light is reflected into a single ray of light at a specific angle. Specular reflection is obnserved at a time when the reflection is greater in a particular observing direction. This is readily seen on surfaces which are shiny. This is the reason as to why a lot of computer graphics images are observed to be plastic.
Snell's law is an expression used to define the correlation between the incident angle and refraction angle, when citing to light progressing across a border between two varying isotropic media such as water, glass, or air. In this example, as the light pass through the water, the glass and the air the rod is seen to be distorted twice.
The distortion will be different in vertical and horizontal direction as in through the horizontal direction the light waves pass through water, glass and air but through the vertical direction the light waves pass from water to air as the glas is open from top.
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