Mini-lab

• Fill a glass with water.

• Using a marker draw a big arrow on a piece
of paper.
• Put the piece of paper at the back of the
glass.
• Look through the front of the glass as you
slowly move the paper behind.
• Take note of your observations in your
science journal.
 Learning Target

• I can describe refraction

and explain its effects.
 Guide Questions
• What happens to light as it moves
between transparent substances?
• Why does light refract when it
encounters different media?
• What happens to the speed of light
as it moves into a slower medium?
Into a fast medium?
 A Trick Question
Ben put a coin in a mug and moved
back so he could not see it. His
friend Martin poured some water into
the cup and suddenly Ben could see
the coin again without moving. Why
could Ben now see the coin?
 What is refraction?
When light passes from one substance
into another more dense substance it
changes direction.

We call this change of direction the

Refraction of light.

Refraction occurs at the boundary between

the substances. We call this boundary the
INTERFACE.
Refraction, Lenses, & Sight
 Refraction
• The change in direction of a wave as it
crosses the boundary between two media in
which the wave travels at different speeds.
What causes the light to bend?
What’s different about air and water?
OPTICAL DENSITY – the transparency of a
substance to light

AIR WATER

gas liquid
 Index of Refraction

speed of light in vacuum

n
speed of light in material
 Index of Refraction
Material Index of Refraction
Vacuum 1.0000
Air 1.0003
Ice 1.3100
Water 1.3330
Ethyl Alcohol 1.3600
Plexiglas 1.5100
Crown Glass 1.5200
Light Flint Glass 1.5800
Dense Flint Glass 1.6600
Zircon 1.9230
Diamond 2.4170
Rutile 2.9070
Gallium phosphide 3.5000

The index of refraction varies slightly with the

wavelength of light used.
 Snell’s Law
n1 sin 1  n2 sin 2
 Refraction through a glass block:

Wave slows down and bends

towards the normal due to
entering a more dense medium

Wave slows down but is

not bent, due to entering
along the normal

Wave speeds up and bends

away from the normal due to
entering a less dense medium
 Direction of Bending
Least Time Principle
Of all the possible paths that light might take to get from one point to
another, it always takes the path that requires the least amount of
time.

FST = Fast to Slow, Towards Normal

If a ray of light passes across the boundary from a material in which it
travels fast into a material in which travels slower, then the light ray will
bend towards the normal line.

SFA = Slow to Fast, Away From Normal

If a ray of light passes across the boundary from a material in which it
travels slow into a material in which travels faster, then the light ray will
bend away from the normal line.
The incident ray, the refracted ray, and the
normal lie on one plane.
The incident ray, the refracted ray, and the
normal lie on one plane.
 Example of Refraction
When a straw is placed
in water it looks like
this:
In this case the light rays
are slowed down by the
water and are bent,
causing the straw to look
broken. The two media in
this example are air and
water.
 Archerfish
The only means by which I could remotely match
the marvels of the Archer fish would be to line up
my sight with the prey from a position directly
underneath the prey. From this vantage point,
light from the prey travels directly to my eye
without undergoing a change in direction. Since
the light is traveling along the normal to the
surface, it does not refract. The light passes
straight through the water to my eyes. Normally,
when light from an object changes medium on the
way to the eye, there is a visual distortion of the
image. But if I sight along the normal, there is no
refraction and no visual distortion of the image.
From this ideal line of sight, I would be able to hit
my prey time after time (assuming I could master
the task of spraying a jet of water in the desired
direction). Using my physics understanding of the
refraction of light, I could pretend to mimic the
Archer fish.
 Dispersion
The separation of light into colors arranged
according to their frequency, by
interaction with a prism or diffraction
grating.
 Dispersion
Blue Bends Best

Physics 1051 Lecture

7 Slide 29
 Different Frequencies
Different Indices of
Refraction

Physics 1051 Lecture

7 Slide 30
 Refractive Index
Function of Wavelength

Physics 1051 Lecture

7 Slide 31
 Table of Indices

Blue Yellow Red

M aterial (486.1 nm) (589.3 nm) (656.3 nm)
Crown
Glass 1.524 1.517 1.515
Flint Glass 1.639 1.627 1.622
Water 1.337 1.333 1.331
Cargille Oil 1.53 1.52 1.516
Carbon
Disulfide 1.652 1.628 1.618
Physics 1051 Lecture
7 Slide 32
 Rainbows
White light separates into different colors
(wavelengths) on entering the raindrop
because red light is refracted by a lesser
angle than blue light. On leaving the
raindrop, the red rays have turned through
a smaller angle than the blue rays,
producing a rainbow.
Refraction & Reflection
in a Raindrop
Rainbow Formation
An observer sees
red light coming
from droplets of
water higher in
the sky.
Droplets of water
lower in the sky
send violet light
to the eye.
 1-Minute Pause
If you go fishing with a bow and arrow, will
you go aim AT the fish, ABOVE the fish, or
BELOW the fish to hit it? If you are using
a laser gun, where would you aim?
With bow and arrow, aim below the fish
because the fish appears higher than it
actually is due to refraction. When using a
laser gun, aim directly at the fish because
the light that you see that bounces from
the fish would have been refracted
already. The laser light will refract along
the same path to the fish.
 Learning targets

1. I can predict the qualitative

characteristics (size/ magnification,
orientation, location, and type) of images
formed by plane and curved mirrors and
lenses through ray diagrams.
 Lenses
A lens is merely a carefully ground or molded
piece of transparent material that refracts light
rays in such as way as to form an image.
Converging Lens
Diverging Lens
 Anatomy of Lenses
• A lens also has an imaginary vertical axis that
bisects the symmetrical lens into halves.
 Anatomy of Lenses
• If the light rays converge (as in a converging
lens), then they will converge to a point. This
point is known as the focal point of the
converging lens.
 Anatomy of Lenses
• If the light rays diverge (as in a diverging
lens), then the diverging rays can be traced
backwards until they intersect at a point. This
intersection point is known as the focal
point of a diverging lens.
 Anatomy of Lenses
• A lens does have an imaginary point that we
refer to as the 2F point. This is the point on
the principal axis that is twice as far from the
vertical axis as the focal point is.
 Anatomy of Lenses
• The distance from the optical center of the
lens to the focal point is known as the focal
length (abbreviated by f).
 Rules For Converging Lenses
1) Any incident ray traveling parallel to the
principal axis of a converging lens will refract
through the lens and travel through the focal
point on the opposite side of the lens.
2) Any incident ray traveling through the focal
point on the way to the lens will refract through
the lens and travel parallel to the principal axis.
3) An incident ray which passes through the center
of the lens will in effect continue in the same
direction that it had when it entered the lens.
Image Formation by Converging Lens
 Rules For Diverging Lenses
1) Any incident ray traveling parallel to the
principal axis of a diverging lens will refract
through the lens and travel in line with the focal
point (i.e., in a direction such that its extension
will pass through the focal point).
2) Any incident ray traveling towards the focal
point on the way to the lens will refract through
the lens and travel parallel to the principal axis.
3) An incident ray which passes through the center
of the lens will in effect continue in the same
direction that it had when it entered the lens.
Diverging Lens Image Formation

Always Virtual, Smaller, and Right-Side Up

 CHARACTERISTICS OF IMAGES FORMED BY A CONVEX LENS
OBJECT
SIZE ATTITUDE LOCATION TYPE
POSITION
1. At infinity
2. Beyond 2F’
3. At 2F’
4. Between F’
and 2F’
5. At secondary
focus
6. Between the
secondary focus
and the lens
CHARACTERISTICS OF IMAGES FORMED BY A CONCAVE LENS
SIZE ATTITUDE LOCATION TYPE
Object is placed
anywhere in
front of a
concave lens
Refraction, Lenses, & Sight
 The Human Eye

Activity: Parts of the Eye

The Human Eye
• The outer covering of the
eyeball consists of a relatively
tough, white layer (or white of
the eye).

• The circular, colored area of the

eye that surrounds the pupil—
controls the amount of light that
enters the eye. It allows more
light into the eye (enlarging or
dilating the pupil) when the
environment is dark and allows
less light into the eye (shrinking
or constricting the pupil) when
the environment is bright.

• It is the fluid that fills the back

section (posterior segment) of
the eye that extends from the
back surface of the lens to the
retina.
• It is found near the front of the
eye, in the area protected by the
eyelids. It is a thin, transparent
CONJUNCTIVA
membrane that runs to the edge
of the cornea. It also covers the
moist back surface of the
eyelids and eyeballs.

• It contains the cells that sense

light (photoreceptors) and the
blood vessels that nourish them.
Its most sensitive part is a small
area called the macula, which
has millions of tightly packed
photoreceptors (the type called
cones). The high density of
cones in the macula makes the
visual image detailed, just as a
high-resolution digital camera
has more megapixels.
• It is the clear, curved layer in front
of the iris and pupil where light
enters the eye. It serves as a
protective covering for the front of
the eye and also helps focus light
on the retina at the back of the eye.

• It is located behind the iris. By

changing its shape, it focuses light
onto the retina. Through the action
of small muscles (called the ciliary
muscles), it becomes thicker to
focus on nearby objects and thinner
to focus on distant objects.

• It carries impulses from the retina

to the brain, as well as other cranial
nerves, which transmit impulses to
each eye muscle, travel through the
orbit (the bony cavity that
surrounds the eyeball).
• After passing through the cornea, light
travels through this structure commonly PUPIL
termed as the black dot in the middle of
the eye.

• It is the fluid that fills the front section

(anterior segment) of the eye that
extends from the inside of the cornea to
the front surface of the lens.

• These are responsible for sharp,

detailed central vision and color vision
and are clustered mainly in the macula.

• These are responsible for night and

peripheral (side) vision. They are more
numerous than cones and much more
sensitive to light, but they do not
register color or contribute to detailed
central vision as the cones do. They are
grouped mainly in the peripheral areas
of the retina.
1. When we look at an object, the
light striking the object enters the
eye through the cornea.

Because of its bulging shape

and the big difference b/w its
IOR (n=1.38) and that of the
surrounding air (n=1.00), the
cornea is where most of the
refraction of light occurs.
 The crystalline lens being
convex in shape, focuses
this light to a single point
and by the help of the
ciliary muscles casts an
image of the object on the
retina.

2. After passing through the

cornea, a portion of this light
passes the pupil and goes to the
crystalline lens
 3. The image formed is real, inverted,
and smaller than the object. It is relayed
to the brain by the optic nerve.
4. This image is adjusted by our brain so
that we see the object as it is.
 Vision Problems
The closest distance at which an object can be
seen clearly by the eye is called the near point
of the eye. The near point for young adults
with normal vision is 25 cm; for children,
around 10 cm; and for the aged, 50 cm or
more. The far point of the eye is the farthest
distance at which an object can be seen
clearly. The far point of the normal eye is
taken as infinity. Thus, a normal healthy eye
can see objects as close as 25 cm or very
distant from it.
Normal Eye Focus
 Near-Sighted (Myopia)

• People suffering from this visual problem can see

very close objects clearly, but distant objects are
blurry.
• A myopic eye forms the image of a distance object
in front of the retina because the eyeball is longer
than the normal or is too curved.
• How can it be corrected?
 Near-Sighted (Myopia)

This can be corrected using a diverging lens. The diverging lens causes
the light to bend slightly before entering the eye so that the image will be
formed at the retina
 Far-Sighted (Hypermetropia)

• People suffering from this visual problem can see distant

objects but cannot focus clearly on nearby objects.
• In this case, the eyeball is too short and the image of a close
object is formed behind the retina.
• How can it be corrected?
 Far-Sighted (Hypermetropia)

This can be corrected using a converging lens. The diverging lens can
focus light rays on the retina instead of behind the retina.
 Astigmatism
• Cornea is oval shaped instead of spherical.
This causes light to focus on two or more
spots.
 Mini Lab
1. Put your finger in front of your eyes about an
arm’s length away.
2. Slowly bring your finger toward you.
3. Stop when you reach the point that you cannot
focus on it and the finger becomes blurry.
4. Ask somebody to measure the distance
between your finger and your eye.
– This distance is your near point.
• Do you have a normal vision? If not, are you
farsighted or nearsighted?
 LASIK

Laser-assisted In
Situ
Keratomileusis
The procedure takes
approximately 10
minutes, with actual
laser time exposure
varying from 15 to 60
seconds. People who
have undergone any of
these surgeries felt no
pain but may experience
a “foreign-body”
sensation that lasted for
several hours after a
LASIK procedure, or 3
to 4 days after a
photorefractive
keratectomy (PRK)
procedure.
 Activity
1. When an object distance is 60 cm, a converging lens
forms an image 12 cm from the lens. If the
experiment is repeated with the object distance of 12
cm, what will the new image distance be? Show your
answer by drawing ray diagrams and characterize the
image in EACH case.
 Activity
You and your friend want to burn some dried leaves
using a magnifying lens. At what distance from the dried
leaves will you place the lens to burn immediately?
Why?

The dried leaves

should be placed at
the principal focus of
the lens; that is, at a
distance equal to the
focal length of the
lens
How can refraction explain this
picture (duck in an aquarium)?
END
 KWA: 3-2-1
3K 2W 1A
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