Snell’s Law of Refraction:

Life of snellius

Willebrord Snellius (1580-1626)

Snellius performed an experiment about the difference about the angle of incidence to
the angle of refraction. Unlike the law of reflection, the two angles are obviously not
equal.
Actually, Snellius questioned himself if there is a relationship between angle of
incidence to angle of refraction, so that during the 17th century the answer was being
provided that the ratio of the sines of the angles of incidence and refraction is equal to
the ratio of the speeds in the two media. (In short that the sine of the angle is directly
proportional to the speed of light).1st Snell’s Law
(2nd form of Snell’s Law)
Snell’s Law confirms the finding that light can enter a denser medium in which he
observes that the light bends through its original position in which the angle of refraction
is less than the incidence, but if the light enters in a region with smaller index of
refraction, so the light bends a little so that the angle of refraction is greater than the
angle of incidence.

2 formulas: speed of light and refraction

In this episode we will discuss Willebrord Snell, and His Law of Refraction, along with
his role in the history of optometry. In 1621 Willebrord Snell discovered a relationship,
now referred to as Snell’s Law. This law, describes and details, how light behaves, as it
passes through two connected surfaces, as it relates to their respective refractive index.
His formula states, that the ratio of the sines of the angles, at which the light passes
through two objects, is equivalent to the reciprocal of the ratios of their respective
refraction index. By applying this formula, we can determine the path that light will take,
providing us with the ability to create, more effective optical devices, such as
spectacles, contact lenses, and telescopes.
SHOW LESS

46 pears impacted optometry

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BASED ON THE BOOK

Elaborate .

Refraction of Light

Different materials respond differently to light. Incident light can be reflected, absorbed,
or transmitted. Objects that do not allow light to be transmitted through them are called
opaque materials. For an opaque material, the light that enters it is just reflected and/or
absorbed. Majority of the objects you encounter daily are opaque. On the contrary,
objects that allow light to pass through are identified as transparent materials. Although
some amount of light is absorbed or reflected, light can also be transmitted in a
transparent material. Common materials such as glass, water, and air are considered to
be transparent.

Based on your previous lesson, you know that light travels at a constant speed in a
vacuum. However, when it travels through a material, the speed of light becomes less.
Do you have an idea why? When light propagates in space, it behaves as a wave. But
when it interacts with matter, it demonstrates particle behavior. As light passes through
a material, it interacts with the atoms as particles do. The photons are absorbed by the
atoms, causing the electrons to jump to an excited state and reemit the photons as the
electrons go back to their initial state. This process goes on from atom to atom until light
exits the material. The successive absorption and emission of light within a material
increases the time of travel that results in a lesser speed.

The speed of light in a material can be compared to the speed of light in a vacuum by
getting their ratio. This ratio of the speed of light in vacuum (c) to the speed of light in a
material (v) is known as the index of refraction or optical density. In symbols, n=c/v
Because the index of refraction is the ratio between two speeds, it is a unitless quantity.
The value of the index of refraction depends on the speed of light in the material and
can only be greater than or equal to one. Its smallest possible value is 1, which only
happens when the speed of light in a material is equal to its speed in a vacuum. In air,
the speed of light is not very different than that in a vacuum, so the index of refraction is
1. A value less than 1 is unacceptable because it implies that the speed of light in the
material is greater than that in a vacuum. For most materials the index of refraction is
greater than 1.

Because of the change in speed, light rays undergo a change in direction as they pass
through a transparent material. This bending of light due to the change in speed when
light passes through a different medium is known as refraction. Refraction of light is also
a consequence of the principle of least time, which states that light will travel in a path
that will require the least amount of time to travel from one point to another. So when it
encounters a boundary where the speed of light is different, it will bend in the direction
that will minimize the time to reach one point to another. As a result, light bends toward
the normal greater speed line if it enters a medium where of light the speed of light is
lesser. On of light the other hand, it will bend away from the normal line if the denser
materials, the speed of light is lesser.

The bending of light toward or away from the normal line can easily be explained by this
principle. To minimize the time of travel in a medium where the speed of light is lesser,
light should travel a shorter distance, so it bends toward the normal. On the other hand,
if light travels in the second medium with a greater speed than in the first medium, it
bends away from the normal to compensate for the shorter distance traveled in the first
medium, making the overall time of travel as small as possible.

Snell's Law of Refraction From the experiment you performed, the angle of incidence
was compared to the angle of refraction. Unlike in the law of reflection, the two angles
are obviously not equal. Do you think that there is an exact relationship between them?
The answer was provided in the 17th century by Willebrord Snellius who discovered that
the ratio of the sines of the angles of incidence and refraction is equal to the ratio of the
speeds in the two media. In other words, the sine of the angle is directly proportional to
the speed of light in the material. So the greater the speed of light in a material, the
greater is the sine of the angle relative to the normal line. Snell's law provides the
mathematical expression for the direction of the bending of light toward or away from
the normal. In symbols, the law of refraction, otherwise known as Snell's law, can be
expressed as follows

The second form of Snell's law confirms the finding that if light enters a denser medium
(i.e., larger n), the light bends toward the normal, so the angle of refraction is less than
the angle of incidence. Conversely, if light enters a region with a smaller index of
refraction, light bends away from the normal, Fig. 5.18. Illustration of the law so the
angle of refraction is greater than the angle of incidence. of refraction in terms of optical
These illustrate the inverse relationship of the sine of the angle density to the index of
refraction of a medium. Common Applications of Refraction Various phenomena can be
associated with refraction. One example is the apparent depth of a body of water or
maybe a swimming pool. What appears to be the depth of the bottom surface is not the
actual depth because light from the bottom refracts as it passes from water to air.
Because light travels from a denser to a less dense medium, light bends away from the
normal, producing an effect that makes the body of water or the pool appear to be
shallower. The same reasoning can be used to explain why a straw submerged in a
glass of water seems to be broken or bent. Fishermen who use spears in catching fish
aim lower than the location where they saw the target so that they are really hitting the
actual fish and not just the image produced by the refraction of light.

Fig. 5.19. (Left) Refraction makes a straw dipped in water seem broken. (Right) When
catching fish in the river or the sea, most fishermen try to aim their spears lower than
the location of the image of the fish to hit it accurately Variation in the density of air can
also produce refraction because light travels slower in a denser medium. During a hot
day, the air near the ground is usually hotter and is therefore less dense than on top. As
a result, light coming from a distant object bends upward, producing what appears to be
an inverted image of the object on the ground known as a mirage.
The formation of a rainbow or the dispersion of light into different colors, as what you
observed in the previous chapter, is also caused by the refraction of light. Different
colors corresponding to different wavelengths bend differently from one another as light
passes through a prism at a certain angle, resulting in the separation of light into the
colors of the rainbow. The apparent position of the sun as compared to its actual
location that results in an "advanced sunrise" and a "delayed sunset also be explained
by refraction. Light coming from the sun undergoes change in direction and bending
because the layers of the atmosphere consist of varying densities that cause the
refraction, refraces the lightening produced disken hot air from the ground as shown in
figure 5.21.

Fig. 5.20. A mirage is produced when hot air from the ground as shown in figure 5.21.
refracts the light coming from a distant object. Lastly, the so-called twinkling of stars is
just another consequence of refraction. Differences in densities of the atmosphere result
in the changing direction of light rays due to atmospheric refraction. This produces the
twinkling effect of the stars. Can you think of other instances wherein refraction can be
observed? Yes you're right, its applications in optical instruments were not yet included.
But before you proceed to that, the refraction of light in lenses must first be understood

Fig. 5.21. (a) The refraction that is caused by the atmosphere acts as a prism,
separating the actual sunlight into several bright colors, as perceived by an observer.
(b) The same atmosphere also causes the refraction of light coming from the stars,
causing it to twinkle.
do you know what is common to the sparkling of diamonds and the twinkling of stars it is
refraction the bending of light at the interface of two media like air and glass or air in
water let us see refraction we have water glycerine and empty glass and glass rod pour
some glycerine in the glass pour some water over it glycerine being heavier than water
settles at the bottom and glycerin and water from two distinct layers place the glass rod
in the glass like this now look at the glass rod from the side of the glass what do you
see the glass rod seems to bend at the point where the water surface meets air and
also where water meets glycerin this is because light travels at different speeds in
different media as the light beam passes from air to water it slows down and so it
appears to bend at the boundary so when light moves to multiple media it bends every
time it moves from one medium to another so what does this have to do with twinkling
stars any guess the different layers of the atmosphere have different densities and
composition and so multiple refraction of light happens as light travels through these
layers of atmosphere surrounding the earth the refraction in random direction due to the
fluid nature of atmosphere and wind makes the Rays enter our eye at DIF certain
moments only this leads to sometimes us seeing the light and sometimes not our brain
interprets the situation as twinkling

REFRACTION OF LIGHT- PART 1

What can happen when a beam of light is incident on the surface of any object?. When
a light beam is incident on the surface of any object, a part of the light can be
REFLECTED by the object...a part of the light can be TRANSMITTED... that is it may
pass THROUGH the object and get out from the other side… and a part of the light can
also be ABSORBED by the object. The amount of light reflected, absorbed or
transmitted depends on the MATERIAL that the object is made up of. If an object is
opaque, then it will absorb and or reflect most of the light back. If it is transparent, more
light will be transmitted...
Can you think of examples for these two? The Surface of a mirror is shiny and opaque,
and most of the light rays are REFLECTED from it! On the other hand, glass is an
example of a transparent
object. It will TRANSMIT most of the light.
So what is REFRACTION of light? Here’s how we define it in simple words. It is simply
bending of light when it travels from one medium to another! Yes, if it is incident at this
angle, then it goes through
at another angle! Now, this is not the exact definition as there are a few technicalities
involved. Let me explain it to you. Consider a transparent object kept here, say a glass
slab. Suppose light travelling through air is incident obliquely on the surface of the
glass. What do I mean when I say ‘obliquely’?
It means ‘slant’. It implies that the incident ray is neither parallel nor at a right angle to a
specified line. Now this light will BEND at the boundary of the two media. Here, the two
media are air and glass. This bending of light at the boundary of the two media is what
we call ‘refraction of light’. We see that at this point, the light bends! It’s not going
straight. What are these two mediums called? The medium from where the light is
incident is called the incident medium and the medium where refraction occurs is called
a refractive medium. Similarly here as well, the light is travelling from one medium to
another medium. It’s from glass to air! And here also it is incident at an angle. Since we
know that air is a transparent medium, light bends at this boundary, and travels through
air. So light refracted at these two points! Let us draw a line perpendicular to the surface
at this point of incidence.
This line is also called a normal. What is this angle called? It is called the ANGLE OF
INCIDENCE and is denoted by the letter ‘i’. It is an angle made by an incident ray with
the normal.
And this is the angle made by refracted ray with the
normal. It is called ANGLE OF REFRACTION, ‘r’.

“Why does light change its direction after entering another medium at an angle?”
The change in direction of light occurs because of the CHANGE IN THE SPEED of light
in THAT MEDIUM. When light enters another medium, there is a CHANGE IN ITS
SPEED.
The speed may either increase or decrease depending on the medium. Note that when
we say that the speed will increase, it does NOT mean that the speed will be greater
than THIS value, which is the speed of light in vacuum. It means that its speed in the
refractive medium will be
greater than its speed in the incident medium. Similarly, the decrease in speed is also in
comparison with the speed in the incident medium.
When the light is entering into the glass at an angle, it travels at a lesser speed
than in air... and when it goes from glass to air, its speed increases.
So it is because of this change in speed that the direction of light changes!
But what if light is entering PERPENDICULAR to the surface of the glass?
Will its speed change?
Yes, its speed will change, however it does not bend this time.
Yes, the refracted ray propagates in the same direction as the incident ray.
Talking about the case when light enters at an angle… there is one more
observation that we can make.
Observe this part of the refraction.
Observe the incident and refracted rays!
We notice that the refracted ray is more towards the normal than the incident
ray.
When the light ray enters the glass from air, it bends… and it bends
TOWARDS the normal.
And from this refraction, we can see that when the light
ray again enters the air, it bends AWAY from the normal.
So we can say that when the light travels from an OPTICALLY RARER MEDIUM
to an OPTICALLY DENSER MEDIUM, it bends TOWARDS the normal and when
the light travels from an optically denser medium to an optically rarer medium,
it bends AWAY from the normal.
Optically rarer to Optically denser  Bends towards the normal
Optically denser to Optically rarer  Bends away from the normal
What do we mean by optically rarer and denser mediums by the way?
An optical medium is a medium through which light can propagate.
Since both air and glass are transparent, light can pass
through them.
So,both of them are optical mediums.
What about rarer and denser?
If the refractive medium is optically rarer compared to the incident medium, then the
speed of light in it will be greater!
And when the refractive medium is optically denser compared to the incident
medium, the speed of light in it will be lesser.
Note than in both cases, we are comparing the speed of light with the speed
of light in the incident medium!
So what do we understand by this?
How can we summarise it?
When light is travelling from an optically rarer medium to an optically denser
medium, its speed will decrease and it will bend TOWARDS the normal.
Whereas, when the light is travelling from an optically denser medium to an
optically rarer medium, its speed will increase and it will bend AWAY from the
normal.
Optically rarer to Optically denser  Speed decreases , Bends towards the normal
Optically denser to Optically rarer  Speed indcreases , Bends away from the normal
Now that this is clear, I want you to understand another concept!
Now instead of a glass slab, we have water, and also suppose that the ray of
light is incident in the same direction.
We can see that this angle is the same in both the cases!
So will the refracted ray in this case travel in this direction only?
In other words, will the angle of refraction be the
same in both cases?
No the angle of refraction will be different in this case.
In fact the angle of refraction here is greater than the previous
one.
So what can we infer?
We can say that the refraction of a light ray depends on
the MATERIAL MEDIUM on which light is incident.
Yes, light rays will be refracted by different amounts in different
materials.
But wait…
I have a couple of questions for you!
Talking about the case when light enters at an angle… how does the change
in speed result in the change in direction of light?
And why does this perpendicular ray not change its direction
after refraction?

in the previous video we learned what refraction of light is refraction of

light is a transmission of light through an object in which the light which is
incident obliquely bends at the boundary of the two media we also said that the
bending of light in the medium is caused by the change in its speed when light is
traveling from an optically rarer medium to an optically denser medium its speed
decreases and it bends towards the normal when the light is traveling from
an optically denser medium to an optically rarer medium its speed
increases and it bends away from the normal in the figure the case above is
from optically rarer to denser and the case below is optically denser to rarer
but how does the change in speed result in the change of direction of light I
did mention in my previous video that we will understand this with the help of an
analogy for the next few minutes just forget everything I told you about anything related
to light and just concentrate on what I'm about to show you here's a shopping cart which
has rotating wheels say I want to move this shopping cart from the road to the grass
obviously I will push it or apply a force on it assume that I will apply a constant force
throughout its journey let us see what happens when I start to move from concrete road
to the grass what did you notice as the wheels of the cart entered the grass surface
their speed reduced the thought traveled at a much lower speed on grass than on the
concrete road and the reason for slower speed is rather obvious the grass offers more
resistance to the motion of the cart than the concrete road here we can consider the
concrete road and grass as two different media through which the cart is moving notice
that the direction of the cart is same in both the media we can think about light in the
same way something similar happens when the light is traveling perpendicular from an
optically rarer to an optically denser medium the optically denser medium offers
resistance to the flow of light and hence its speed reduces however its direction does
not change let's get back to our cart example what will happen if the cart enters the
grassy surface at an angle let us see that this is how it would look now let's take the cart
back to the original position on the road and we will look at the movement very slowly
as the cart approaches the grass surface at an angle its right wheel will enter first and
as it enters here it will slow down at that time the adjacent wheel is still on the concrete
road and is hence moving with the same original speed so the wheel on the grass
surface will move slower than the other wheels for some time but let's focus on the two
front wheels both the wheels are moving with different speeds as the force applied is
constant what this will do is slightly turn the cart towards the right the cart will change its
direction and continue moving in that direction afterwards so the direction changed now
let me draw a normal to the surface now we can see that the cart has taken a turn
towards the normal if the surface wouldn't have changed the thought would have
continued to move in this direction but because the surface changed the direction of
movement of the cart also changed why am I telling you all this it's because one can
think of bending of light in the same way when light is obliquely incident on the surface
of an optically denser medium its speed decreases and it bends towards the normal part
of the beam that enters optical medium first slows down making the entire beam to
change the direction towards the normal now let me ask you a question how will the
direction of light change when it enters and optically denser medium to an optically rarer
medium will it move towards or away from the normal to answer this question let's
switchback to the cart example this time the cart is here on the grass and it's being
pushed towards the concrete patch what will happen here this is how the direction of the
movement of the cart will change why let's see the animation slowly as the cart begins
its movement the right wheel will reach the boundary first and after entering the
concrete patch its speed will change will it increase or decrease it will increase it's
because the friction is lesser on the concrete road so now this wheel will move with
greater speed but it's adjacent companion is still on grass moving at a slower speed so
the change in their relative speeds will turn the cart towards this direction if I draw a
normal you can clearly see that it's moving away from the normal in this case if the
surfaces were the same it would have moved in this direction but as they're different the
direction as well as the speed of the cart changes we can apply the same analogy for
the light entering from an optically denser medium to an optically rarer medium light can
propagate more easily in an optically rarer medium than in an optically denser medium
in such a case its direction of propagation will be away from the normal in the refractive
medium one last question to which you will definitely know the answer to what if the cart
is entering the concrete like this perpendicular to the surface yes its speed will increase
but its direction will not change so if the light is entering an optically rarer medium in a
perpendicular manner then a speed will increase but its direction will not change in the
next video we will talk about a few examples of refraction you

What happens when light is incident on the surface of a transparent object? Consider a
glass slab and suppose the narrow beam of light is incident on one side. The beam of
light ‘partially reflects’, partially refracts’ and it's even ‘partially absorbed’ by the object.
In the past, we have already discussed laws of reflection. Do you remember those
laws? The first one says that the light ray which is incident is reflected in such a way
that the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection are equal. And the second one
says that the incident ray, the reflected ray and the normal all lie in the same plane. Just
like for reflection, there are some laws for refraction. And what is refraction? Refraction
is the change in direction of light as it passes across the boundary separating
two media caused by its change in speed! If the refractive medium is optically denser
compared to incident medium, then the refracted ray will bend towards the normal. And
if it is optically rarer, it will bend away from the normal. Note that the light is incident
obliquely on the surface! When the incident light is perpendicular to the surface, it does
not change its direction!

There are two laws of REFRACTION. Among them, the first one is same as the second
law of REFLECTION! Consider light travelling from some medium 1 to another medium
2, which is optically denser than medium 1. So its speed in medium 2 decreases and it
bends towards the normal.
The first law of refraction says that, the incident ray, refracted ray and the normal at the
point of incidence all lie in the same plane. It means that if I were to draw this on a piece
of paper, they all will be on the plane of paper and not out of the paper
What about the second law? The second law is also called Snell’s law of refraction.

Snell’s law gives us the relation between the incident and refraction angles and the
refractive indices of the mediums. What is the refractive index of a medium? It is the
extent to which the refractive medium increases or decreases the speed of light.
Mathematically, it is the ratio of the speed of light in the incident medium to the speed of
light in the refractive medium. It's denoted by ‘n’ and the two numbers in the base are
the two mediums. We read this as, refractive index of medium two with respect to the
incident medium 1. Also ‘‘v one’’ and ‘‘v two’’ are speeds of light in medium one and two
respectively. We can also define it as the extent to which light changes its direction in
the refractive medium

Ok, let’s discuss the Snell’s law of refraction now. In simple words, it tells us that the
ratio of the sine of the angle of incidence to the sine of the angle of refraction is equal to
the refractive index of the second medium with respect to the first medium! Now look at
the term on the right! It is constant for light of a given colour and for the given pair of
media! This is the basic idea of Snell’s law! And there are different ways in which we
can understand it. In the previous video, we’d seen what 'N two one' means! It is equal
to the ratio of speed of light in the incident medium to the speed of light in refractive
medium. So we can also say that 'sine i' over 'sine r' is ‘v one' over 'v two’. There’s yet
another way to understand this. We may want to understand the ratio in terms of the
absolute refractive indices of the medium! Absolute refractive index if you remember, is
the refractive index of a medium with respect to vacuum! For instance, if the refractive
medium is water, then it is written like this: So can we find this ratio in terms of ‘n one’
and ‘n two’? Yes we can! We just use some very basic math! We can write this ratio like
this. Where ‘c’ is the speed of light in vacuum! Yes, if you simplify this ratio, we will get
‘v one' over 'v two’. And can you guess what the numerator and the denominator are
equal to? That's right, this is nothing but the absolute refractive index of medium 2 and
this is the absolute refractive index of medium 1. That was another way of
understanding the Snell’s law! We can also say that ‘sine i' over 'sine r’ is ‘n two' over 'n
one Where ‘n two’ and ‘n one’ are the absolute refractive indices of media 2 and 1
respectively!
Hope you understood this well! Let’s move on to a new page! So these were the two
laws of refraction of light. In the next lesson, we will solve a simple example based on
Snell’s law!

Light is a fascinating subject. Many scientists spend their entire career studying light
and how it works. Light refraction is a complicated scientific concept, but the bending
a pencil science activity makes it a little easier for kids to understand this concept.

Light refraction occurs when something gets in the way of the light waves. Light, like
most other materials, travels mainly in waves (although it can also have particles, which
is a whole other lesson!). Because the light can’t travel as quickly in the water as it does
in the air, the light bends around the pencil, causing it to look bent in the water.
Basically, the light refraction gives the pencil a slight magnifying effect, which makes the
angle appear bigger than it actually is, causing the pencil to look crooked.

Light refraction:
Refraction = the bending of light rays

Refraction happens as the rays travel at a slightly different speed.

 When they enter a denser medium e.g. water - the ray slows down. 

 When they enter a less dense medium e.g. air - the rays speed up. 

Light refraction experiment for kids:

Heres an easy light refraction experiment you could do with your children.

1. Use a sheet of paper and draw 2 arrows on it and make them as similar as
possible. Have 1 arrow near the top and the other near the bottom. Draw the arrows
pointing in the same direction.

2. You will need a glass full of water.

3. Slowly move the piece of paper behind the glass of water.

4. When you look through the glass of water, the bottom arrow on your sheet of paper
should be facing the other direction. 
Refraction bends light. During the experiment, the light travelled from the image through
the air, then through the glass cup, into the water, coming out the other side of the glass
cup and into the air once more before it reaches your eyes. 

The light bends as it goes through the glass of water and does the same when it comes
out. This causes the light paths to cross and flip the image of the arrow horizontally.

Hello everyone I'm sure you've all heard that light travels in a straight line
it's called the rectilinear propagation of light but are you ready to try your
magic trick with me where we are going to bend light for the magic trick I just
need you to get a transparent glass like this filled with water so pause the
video here and go and get a glass of water are you ready with your glass of
water next I'll be showing in our on the screen and you pause the video when you
see the arrow and hold up your glass of water in front of the screen something
like this and look at the arrow again and tell me what do you see this time
did you see the magic did you see the arrow changing its direction it's
happening due to bending of light this is called refraction of light and it's
going to be the topic of this video.

I have this torch here with me when I switch on the torch it gives out a beam of light a beam is composed
of many rays of light as you can see each rays traveling in a straight line now for simplicity let's consider a
single ray of light now how do I bend this ray of light I can't just grab the ray of light and bend it right so
what do you think I need to do to bend the light you might be thinking of using a mirror so a mirror
certainly changes the angle by reflecting back the light but what if I ask you I want the light to continue
downwards and still bend it then what do we need to do so you need a transparent material like glass or
plastic here

let's imagine there's a large glass block kept here and I'm going to shine this torch on the glass block
again we'll consider a single ray of light for simplicity can you see the ray of light bending as it enters the
glass block this is known as refraction of light there is also a partial reflection when the light hits the glass
surface but we'll ignore that for this video and our focus will only be on refraction of light so what have we
learnt till now light travels in a straight line as long as it's traveling only in one material so as we saw here
as long as it's traveling only in air it's traveling in a straight line and then if you look only at the glass part
light is traveling in a straight line but when light travels from one material to another so here from
air to glass it bends and this bending of light is called refraction of light
so here's the fancy definition of refraction of light refraction of light
is defined as the change in direction of light when it's traveling obliquely from
one medium to another medium so what does this all mean let's break it down
here so change in direction means bending of light obliquely means the
light is incident at an angle and the word medium means material for example
air glass water these are all materials you may also see the term optical
material because optical refers to light and for refraction remember that the
material needs to be transparent let's place the definition of refraction of
light on our concept board have you seen any simple everyday examples of
refraction one thing that you might have noticed or you can try yourself is take
a pencil and put it in a glass of water the pencil will appear bent it's due to
refraction of light another example is if you go and stand near a swimming pool
it actually appears shallower than it really is and of course the magic trick
that we saw at the beginning of the video so do go ahead and show it to your
friends but don't tell them the secret and there are many many other examples
of refraction but we look at those in detail in a separate video now that we
know what is refraction let's take a look
why refraction happens so what is the
magic this glass block is doing to bend the light the answer is it changes the
speed of light so let's say the speed of light in air is approximately 3 into 10
to the power 8 meter per second and since glass is denser than air it slows
down the light when it enters the glass block and let's say the speed here is 2 into 10 to the
power 8 meter per second so this change in speed of light when it's traveling
from air to glass causes the light to bend and greater the change in speed
greater will be the bending of light we've seen what is refraction why
refraction takes place now let's take a look how light bends during refraction
in this case we saw light bends this way but is it possible for light to bend the
other way also let's go ahead and take a closer look let's look at some terms
first this ray of light is called the incident ray do you know where is the
point of incidence that's right it's here the point where the incident
ray hits the second medium is called the point of incidence now let's draw an
imaginary line perpendicular to this boundary between the two materials this
perpendicular line is called the normal the light ray in the second medium is
called the refracted ray can you see the incident light instead of going straight
is bending towards the normal the angle the incident ray makes with the normal
is called the angle of incidence and the angle the refracted ray makes with the
normal is called the angle of refraction when light is traveling from air to
glass like here how are these angles related that's right angle of incidence
is greater than the angle of refraction here air is the rarer medium or to be
more precise optically rarer medium and glass is the optically denser medium
we use the term optical density because it's different from normal density
normal density is the heaviness or lightness of a material
and is measured as mass by volume but optical density measures how much a
material is able to slow down light and note that a material that is denser than
another one need not be more optically denser than the other material so this was our case
one when light travels from a rarer to a denser medium the speed of light
decreases the light bends towards the normal and as you can see angle of
incidence is greater than the angle of refraction now can we make the light
Bend away from the normal the answers yes we just need to switch the two
materials so as you can see this is our case - when light travels from a denser
to a rarer medium the speed of light increases and as you can see the light
bends away from the normal and the angle of incidence is less than the angle of
refraction here let's spin these two cases of refraction on our concept board
there is another interesting case where the light is incident normally on the
second medium as you can see the incident rays along the normal here but
even though the light is traveling from air to glass can you see that there is
no bending taking place so we say there is no refraction happening here but does
the speed of light change when it enters the glass block the answer's yes as
expected the light will slow down when it goes from air to glass but in this
interesting case there is no bending of light happening here what is the angle
of incidence here that's right it's zero the angle between the incident ray and
the normal is zero what is the angle of refraction in this case correct
it's zero the angle between the refracted ray and the normal here is
zero let's place this special case of normal incidence on our concept board
now that we are done with the topic of refraction are you ready for the top
three questions on this topic coming up for you right now friends try solving
these questions and let me know your answers and doubts by putting it in the
comments below I promise to reply to all your comments as soon as possible so I'm
going to bend away like light and you pause the video here and get these
questions a shot as we discussed in this video refraction is the bending of light when light
travels from one medium to another refraction is caused by the change in speed of light