Questions tagged [refraction]
Change in the direction of propagation of a wave when its transmitting medium changes. The tag does also apply to index of refraction.
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Behaviour of light in non-Newtonian fluids
So if a ray of light is passed through a cuboidal glass tub, and refraction occurs for the first time and if force is applied on the the fluid laterally, the viscosity would vary and so would it's ...
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Fresnel biprism little concepts
For a Fresnel biprism can anyone please tell how to prove that the distance between the virtual image sources formed is 2a(n-1)α . I can't find any resource where can I understand the derivation. Most ...
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How do parallel reflected rays meet to form image at infinity? If they never meet then how is image formed?
In my textbooks it is written that when an object is kept at focus, its image is formed at infinity and is real. But how is this possible because parallel lines never meet and it is necessary for rays ...
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Why total reflection happens at only 1 angle?
The critical angle can be intuitively understood by Snell's law.If the incident medium has a bigger diffraction index than the refracted medium then according to Snell's law the refracted ray will be ...
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How to estimate change in refractive index due to acoustic wave travelling in quartz?
I'm studying acousto-optic modulators and the basic principle of operation is that an acoustic/sound wave is made to travel along one direction of a crystal (say quartz). This creates a pressure wave ...
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Is refraction a special case of diffraction according to the book by Charles Kittel?
Wikipedia defines diffraction as -
Diffraction is the interference or bending of waves around the corners of an obstacle or through an aperture into the region of geometrical shadow of the obstacle/...
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Help deriving optical path
I have to derive the path of a light ray traveling in a stratified medium with linear variation of its refractive index.
For context the first two exercises ask you to derive Snell's law using ...
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Compression vs Rarefaction in Sound Waves
I am currently looking into solutions for Sound Classification, and I came across Ludvigsen's methodology (if anyone wishes to refer to it).
The problem is that a sample graph of amplitudes in one of ...
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Ray separation in waveplates
In a birefringent medium, the ordinary and extraordinary rays have different Pointing-vector directions and, therefore, different propagation directions, since the direction of the Poyting-vector ...
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Lens maker’s formula from parabolic approximation
I’m attempting to derive the lens maker’s formula for a thin or thick lens using the parabolic approximation.
I’m familiar with the other proof using the law of refraction and different angles.
The ...
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Property of total internal reflection question
If I create a medium with gradually decreasing refractive index from once face at index 2.0 and other at 1.01, and show a beam of light upon the optically denser side, will there be any losses upon ...
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Feynman Lecture 33: Are Fresnel coefficients real?
In the Section 33-6 Feynman says:
It is possible to go on with arguments of this nature and deduce that
$b$ is real. To prove this, one must consider a case where light is
coming from both ...
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Can X-rays travel quicker than visible light in a medium?
I have seen while reading a few books that the refractive index depends on lambda as follows by the Cauchy equation.
$${\displaystyle \eta(\lambda )=A+{\frac {B}{\lambda ^{2}}}}$$
From this, the book ...
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Is the relativistic energy-momentum relation fundamental? [duplicate]
The following relativistic energy-momentum relationship is taken to be fundamental:
$$E^2=p^2c^2+m_0^2c^4.\tag{1}$$
Let us specialize to massless particles ($m_0=0$) so that we have:
$$E=p\ c.\tag{2}$$...
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What is the refraction index in the upper atmosphere (e.g. thermosphere)?
I've been searching for the refraction index in the upper layers of atmosphere such as stratosphere and thermosphere but I can't find it, all that I've seen is all equations without any numbers that I ...
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