The answer is one. I want someone to give me a good understanding why? Incase to

Question

The answer is one. I want someone to give me a good understanding why?

Incase too small:

Consider a plane wave of the light in Q 1.1 traveling from vacuum or air (we can treat air the same as vacuum) into a medium like glass.

Given an incident lightwave in air as discussed above, how many possible solutions of lightwave in glass (that corresponds to the incident lightwave) do you think exists? 1, 2, 3, ... infinite?

Remember this: A single plane wave has a unique amplitude, frequency, velocity, and phase. Here, you ONLY KNOW the velocity, nothing else. Hence, shouldn't you have infinite plane waves that correspond to the incident wave?

1.2 Lightwave in glass Consider a plane wave of the light in Q1.1 traveling from vacuum or air(we can treat air the same as vacuum) into a medium like glass, which has index of refraction 1.5 as show below. air as Given an incident lightwave in air as discussed above, how many possible solutions of lightwave in glass(that corresponds to the incident lightwave) do you think exists? 1,2,3,.. infinite? Remember this: A single plane wave has a unique amplitude, frequency, velocity, and phase. Here, you ONLY KNOW the velocity, nothing else. Hence, shouldn't you have infinite plane waves that correspond to the incident wave?

Explanation / Answer

Since the medium is uniform, the plane wave has the same physical characteristics through out the medium. That's why only single plane wave solution exists in the glass medium. when the wave changes the medium, the frequency of the wave doesn't change.

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