All Questions
Tagged with refraction visible-light
74
questions
85
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4
answers
40k
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What is the mechanism behind the slowdown of light/photons in a transparent medium?
So light travels slower in glass (for example) than in a vacuum. What causes light to slow down? Or: How does it slow down? If light passes through the medium, is it not essentially traveling in the "...
- 1,063
11
votes
6
answers
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Do photons have acceleration?
Photons travel at the fastest speed in our universe, the speed of light.
Do photons have acceleration?
- 1,037
82
votes
11
answers
122k
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What determines color -- wavelength or frequency?
What determines the color of light -- is it the wavelength of the light or the frequency?
(i.e. If you put light through a medium other than air, in order to keep its color the same, which one would ...
- 4,191
52
votes
3
answers
21k
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How does light speed up after coming out of a glass slab?
As I learned today in school, my teacher told me that when light enters a glass slab it slows down due to the change in density and it speeds up as it goes out of the glass slab. This causes a lateral ...
- 841
70
votes
8
answers
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Why doesn't the frequency of light change during refraction?
When light passes from one medium to another its velocity and wavelength change. Why doesn't frequency change in this phenomenon?
- 1,975
25
votes
4
answers
4k
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Looking for the actual reason of refraction explained precisely without analogies
I'm a high school teacher trying to teach my students (15year olds) about refraction. I've seen a lot of good analogies to explain why the light changes direction, like the marching band analogy, that ...
- 319
11
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1
answer
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If refraction slows down light, isn't it possible to hold light still?
I have a quick question about the refraction of light, and I'm sorry if it seems a bit simplistic or even stupid, but I'm still learning.
We know that when light passes through a denser medium, it ...
- 289
7
votes
6
answers
7k
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Is it possible to witness a circular rainbow?
What conditions would make it possible to see a naturally occurring fully 360° circular rainbow? Would it even be possible?
- 173
17
votes
1
answer
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Why is not everything transparent? [duplicate]
There is a related question on this site here: Why glass is transparent? Which explains that glass is transparent because the atoms in glass have very large energy differences between energy levels ...
- 562
10
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4
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9
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7
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Why can we only "see" reflected light? [duplicate]
This is a question thats been bothering me a while. I don't even know if it makes sense or not (like if it is a physics question or becoming a philosophical one). But here it goes. The crux of my ...
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15
votes
4
answers
11k
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Is true black possible?
Black is the absence of light because it absorbs light, but when we create black paint or black objects, light is always reflected, either in all directions in matte or smoothly in shiny black objects,...
- 151
13
votes
3
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Does light change color on its way through a window? [duplicate]
Looking at the refractive index of glass, it's around $1.6$.
Then the speed of light $x$ through light should be given by
$$ 1.6 = \frac{3.0\times10^8}{x}, $$
so $x$ is about $2\times10^8~\mathrm{m}~\...
- 1,432
3
votes
1
answer
418
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Is it possible to construct a lens which focuses all the light rays from an extended object in one point?
A perfect lens focuses the light rays from an extended object (in a plane at a constant distance from the lens), in the focal plane corresponding to the distance of the object.
Now there is an ...
45
votes
4
answers
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How does Fermat's principle make light choose a straight path over a short path?
This is a thought experiment where I have made a "C" shaped hole inside diamond. The refractive index $(\mu)$ of diamond is 2.45. Say we shine a laser from top of the "C" as shown.
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