AP PHYSICS 2 SUMMARY CHAPTER 21 – REFLECTION AND REFRACTION

. Light sources and light rays Light Bulbs, candles, and the Sun are examples of extended sources that emit light. Light from such sources illuminates other objects, which reflect the light. We see an object because incident light reflects off of it and reaches our eyes. We represent the travel of light rays (drawn as lines and arrows). Each point of a shining object or a reflecting object send rays in all directions.

. Law of reflection When a ray strikes a smooth surface such as a mirror, the angle between the incident ray and the normal line perpendicular to the surface equals the angle between the reflected ray and the normal line (the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection). This phenomenon is called specular reflection.

. Diffuse reflection If light is incident on an irregular surface, the incident light is reflected in many different directions. This phenomenon is called diffuse reflection.

. Refraction If the direction of travel of light changes as it moves from one medium to another, the light is said to refract (bend) as it moves between the media.

. Snell’s law Light going from a lower to a higher index of refraction will bend toward the normal, but going from a higher to a lower index of refraction it will bend away from the normal.

. Total internal reflection If light tries to move from a more optically dense medium 1 of refractive index n1 into a less

optically dense medium 2 of refractive index n2 (n1>n2), the refracted light in medium 2 bends away from the normal

line. If the incident angle in a medium 1 훳1 is greater than a critical angle 훳C, all of the light in reflected back into the denser medium.