Refraction of light through a glass slab

Refraction of the light is the deviation of the light ray from its path when it travels from one medium to another medium. When a light ray enters a glass slab, the light ray bends towards the normal since it passes from a rare medium(i.e air) to a denser medium(i.e glass) and emergent rays go away from the normal since it passes from a denser medium (i.e glass) to rare medium(i.e air).

$Refraction through glass slab$

Refraction of light through a glass slab

Let the light ray enters to one of the face of the glass slab,the normal at a point of the incident(B) is MN then the refracted ray is and another normal at the point of the incident (C) is shown by M’N’. The emergent ray that bends away from the normal is represented by .

Moreover, the angle of incident is ∠i₁(the angle between the incident ray and normal MN) and angle of refraction is ∠r_1` which is the angle between the normal MN and refracted angle , ∠i₂is another incident angle between the refracted ray and the normal M’N’ ,∠e is the emergent angle which is the angle between the normal M’N’ and emergent ray .

Frequently asked questions on refraction of the light through the glass slab

Question 1: Is the refraction of the light takes place in the glass slab the same as in the prism?

Ans. Refraction of the light that takes place in the glass slab is not similar to a prism because the faces of the prism are not parallel to each other like the glass slab, therefore emergent ray is not parallel to the incident ray.

Question 2. What is dispersion?

Ans. Dispersion is a phenomenon of the light which is followed by the property of refraction of the light, when a light ray enters a prism, its speed changes since the wavelength of all colors are different therefore their speed also differs from each other, as soon as light enters the prism, it split up into seven colors, when light ray emerges out, all colors deviate as per the sequence of their wavelengths and we see the spectrum of seven colors. The splitting up of the light into seven colors is known as dispersion of the light.

Question 3. Why is the dispersion of the light is not seen through the glass slab?

Ans. The dispersion of the light is not seen through the glass slab because of its geometrical design, its opposite faces are parallel, when light enters to one of the face of a glass slab,it split up into seven colors but when the light ray emerges out of the opposite parallel face, these splitting colors merge into a white light because each color deviates parallel to each other.

Question 3. What is Snell’s law ?

Ans. When a light ray passes from one medium to another medium then the refraction of the light takes, it is seen that the ratio between the sine of the incident angle and the sine of the refracted angle is always constant, this one of the laws of refraction known as the Snell’s law, this constant is also known as the refractive index of one medium to another medium.

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