Refraction of light waves
In the lower class, we have studied that light travels in the form of rays, which was later considered a wave. In this topic, we are going to discuss how light shows refraction in the form of a wave. This was studied by Huygens and he was able to prove reflection, refraction, and many more different phenomenon like interference, diffraction, polarization, etc. Let us understand how gets refracted in the form of a wave.
 |
| Refraction of wave |
Consider a light wave incident on a transparent surface as shown in the figure above, When the first wave normal is at point A, at the same time second wave normal is at point B. After the next time interval, the wavefront at point A changes its medium, and thus velocity changes and starts traveling with velocity v2. But the wave normal at point B travels in the same medium with velocity v1. Thus after time t, the first wave normal reaches point D covering a distance v1t, and the second wave normal reaches point C covering a distance v2t. Thus taking the common tangent to both this wave at points D and C goves the next refracted wavefront as shown in the figure.
Mathematically,
No comments:
Post a Comment