Refraction of Light

Have you ever put your finger in a clear glass of water and completely freaked out because the part of your finger that is in the water somehow became detached from the rest of your finger without you realizing it. Well, if this has ever happened to you, don’t panic because your finger is fine. What you just experienced is called refraction of light and it is the cause of a lot of the really cool things you see happen with light. Rainbows are another great example of light refraction. In the case of rainbows, though, we start getting into colors and wavelengths which we have not covered yet, so for now we stick with the finger in the water. There is one basic overriding equation with light refraction and it is referred to as Snell’s Law (probably because this guy Snell came up with it). The following really cool picture of a straw in water will take you to a website called Hyperphysics where you can learn more about Snell’s Law and the refraction of light. Once you are at the website click on Light and Vision and then click on refraction to take you to all the information on refraction of light and Snell’s Law.

Post Reading Assignment

Using the Snell’s Law data tool on the website, try out different variations of indices of refractions (look at the chart to use real life values) and angles and see how the values change when you increase or decrease certain variables. Try at least five different combinations for each value and record all the numbers in your notebook.