What is refraction?
Q: What is refraction?
A: Refraction is the change in direction of a wave, caused by the change in the wave's speed. Examples of waves include sound waves and light waves. Refraction is seen most often when a wave passes from one transparent medium to another transparent medium.
Q: How does refraction work?
A: When a wave passes from one transparent medium to another transparent medium, the wave will change its speed and its direction. For example, when a light wave travels through air and then passes into water, the wave will slow and change direction. In this property when the light is transmitted through a medium, polarisation of electrons take place, which in turn reduces the speed of light, thus changing the direction of light. As light goes into a medium which is denser, the light ray will 'bend' toward the normal. When it goes back into the less dense medium (with a lower refractive index), it will bend back through the same angle as when it came in (if the surface at exit is parallel to the surface at entry).
Q: What are some examples of how refraction works?
A: An example of how refraction works is placing a straw in a cup of water, with part of the straw in the water. When looking at a certain angle,the straw appears to bend at he water's surface due to change in density between air and water causing bending of light rays as they move from one medium to another. Another example would be lenses working by refraction; when light refracts in prism it splits into colours because some wavelengths bend more than others due to different densities between media that cause different amounts if bending for each wavelength .
Q: What is an optical index or index of refraction?
A: In optics an optical index or index of refraction n describes how radiation such as light moves through that particular substance or material . It can be defined as n = c/v where c represents speed if ligh tin vacuum and v represents phase velocity if ligth within that particular material or substance .
Q:What law uses optical indexes ?
A:Snell's law uses optical indexes or indices for calculating amount iffrefaction .
