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Questions tagged [reflection]

This tag is for questions relating to reflection, the change in direction of a wavefront at an interface between two different media so that the wavefront returns into the medium from which it originated. A familiar example of reflection comes from water waves; as the waves travel they reflect off objects that are floating in the water, and also reflect off the walls of the container holding the water.

33 votes
3 answers
3k views

A Rainbow Paradox

I was studying the phenomena of the formation of a rainbow. In my book, the following diagram is given: So, the rays at the red end of the spectrum make a larger angle with the incident ray than the ...
Golden_Hawk's user avatar
  • 1,064
2 votes
2 answers
2k views

What is the difference between reflectivity and reflectance?

This question is in the context of solar reflections in buildings that cause glare. The two terms are similar but they have differences.
Camilo Diaz's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
48 views

What causes an object to be more reflective than refractive?

This is a question that a high school student asked me and I couldn't give him a satisfactory answer. He started by saying that An object appears red because the energy corresponding to a "red&...
Ankit's user avatar
  • 8,230
2 votes
1 answer
66 views

Influence of absorption, reflectance and light source on interference in thin films

I am not a physicist, but reading up on interference in thin films. I understood how the relation of two interfering light waves intensities $I_1$ and $I_2$ of a thin film (the first reflected at the ...
Iridium's user avatar
  • 23
0 votes
2 answers
75 views

One-way mirror with both sides lit

is there already a technology that provides one-way viewing glass with no regard to whether the back side is lit or not? the case is: two rooms (A and B) side by side, people in room A want to see ...
lmk lmk's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
60 views

How do we see the picture of an object as a whole thing in spherical mirrors?

When we see an object in a spherical mirror, the different parts of the object has different pictures which are also at different locations compared to each other. The lights that go from the tip of ...
Snack Exchange's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
150 views

Why didn't I reach $\frac{1}{p}+\frac{1}{q}=\frac{1}{f}$?

In optics for convex and concave mirrors there is the following formula: $$\frac{1}{p}+\frac{1}{q}=\frac{1}{f}$$ where $p$ is the distance between the object and the mirror, $q$ is the distance ...
Snack Exchange's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
28 views

Changing the size of the lamp reflected from the water surface

Have you noticed that the image reflected from the water surface with ripples differs in size from the initial one? From the image you can see that it’s reflect some times. Moreover from basic optical ...
Mark Smirnov's user avatar

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