1. Law of reflection and Snell\'s law (already completed the experiment, just ne
ID: 3277998 • Letter: 1
Question
1. Law of reflection and Snell's law (already completed the experiment, just need help with the questions here, my data and the experiment I did are below the questions):
(a)There are two boundaries where the laser beam changes medium. Describe the two boundaries and determine which one causes the light to refract?
(b) The two mediums in this experiment are water and air. Which medium is the medium for the incident ray? Which medium is the medium for the refracted ray?
Lab instructions I completed:
1. I filled the refraction cell 3/4 full with water.
2. I created a 360º protractor by overlapping the 0 and 180º marker lines for both protractors on the sheet of paper and then used masking tape to secure the 360º protractor.
3. I centered the refraction cell’s flat side along the 0º base line and made sure that the middle of the cell was located at the origin of the 360º protractor.
4. I pointed the laser light through the refraction cell at an incidence angle of 0º. I pointed the laser through the curved side of the cell, directly at the middle of the flat side of the refraction cell.
5. I made sure that the water and refraction cell were still, so the angles were not affected by movement. I used the protractor to measure the angle and then I recorded the refraction angle of the light coming out of the cell in the data table.
6. I repeated Steps 4 - 5 for all of the angles listed in Table 3 and recorded the data.
Laser and Refraction Cell Data
Incident Angle i (degrees)
Refracted Angle r (degrees)
Sin(i)
Sin(r)
0
0
0
0
5
3.8
0.087
0.066
10
7.5
0.174
0.131
15
11.2
0.259
0.194
20
14.9
0.342
0.257
25
18.5
0.423
0.317
30
22.1
0.500
0.376
35
25.5
0.574
0.431
40
28.9
0.643
0.483
45
32.1
0.707
0.531
Laser and Refraction Cell Data
Incident Angle i (degrees)
Refracted Angle r (degrees)
Sin(i)
Sin(r)
0
0
0
0
5
3.8
0.087
0.066
10
7.5
0.174
0.131
15
11.2
0.259
0.194
20
14.9
0.342
0.257
25
18.5
0.423
0.317
30
22.1
0.500
0.376
35
25.5
0.574
0.431
40
28.9
0.643
0.483
45
32.1
0.707
0.531
Explanation / Answer
a. when the light is pointed at the refraction cell, it first enters the refraction cell ( interface 1) and then comes out of the refraction cell (interface 23)
in both the interfaces the refractive index changes axropss the medium and hence, both the interfaces cxause the light to refract and hence refraction does occur at both the interfaces
b. when talking about interface 1, light comes from air to water, so air is the medium for incident ray and water is the medium for refractred ray
for the interface number 2, the light ray goes from water to air, so in this case, the incident ray medium is water and the refraced ray medium is air
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