Physics/D'Amato 2007 Unit 21 Page 43 Period ____ Name _________________________________

Unit 21 Summary of definitions and relationships

1. A light ray is an imaginary arrow which shows the direction (Illustrate with your own picture)
light travels. A beam of light is real, like a laser, containing
many light rays that are mostly going in the same direction.

2. Objects like a candle flame, light bulb, and the sun are (Illustrate with your own picture)
luminous objects which create light and send rays in every
direction from every point on the object.

3. Light rays reflect in all directions from the surfaces of normal (Illustrate with your own picture)
objects. An illuminated object is reflecting light rays. If an
object is visible to you, a light ray from the object is entering
your eye.

4. We create ray diagrams to reason about the interaction of Light bulb Block Wall
light and objects. Draw enough rays to tell the story. Remember,
light rays go in every direction from every point on a luminous or
illuminated object.
This ray diagram shows that there is an area of dark shadow
directly behind the block where no light rays fall and the rest of
the wall is illuminated.

5. Any two lines can be described in terms of the angle between An angle is between two lines
them. The lines may be real or imaginary or both, but there are
0°
always two lines. Measure from the point where the lines come 30°
together.
We often use the greek letter θ (theta) to stand for an unknown
angle. 90°

Chris D'Amato PTHS 2007. Portions copyright (c) 2006 A. Van Heuvelen and E. Etkina
Physics/D'Amato 2007 Unit 21 Page 44 Period ____ Name _________________________________

6. Many topics in the study of light depend on the concept of a Normal

normal line. r line
N
The normal line is an imaginary line that is perpendicular to the
surface at the point of reflection or refraction.
r
A normal line can be labelled with N for clarity.
90°
Surface

7. On a curved surface, the normal is perpendicular to the Normal line

tangent. On a circle or section of a circle, the normal always runs
through the center of the circle. 90°

8. The law of reflection: a light beam is incident to a smooth Normal line

reflecting surface at some incident angle θ1 to the normal line. Incident ray
The beam reflects off the other side of the normal line at the same
angle θ 2 from the normal line. θ1 θ
2
Angles are always measured between the light ray and the Reflected ray
normal line.
Mirror

9. If a surface is smooth at the microscopic level, like a mirror, Incident rays

the normal lines at different locations are parallel to each other.
Thus, parallel incident rays are reflected at the same angle.
This type of reflection is called specular reflection.

Mirror

10. Ordinary surfaces are rough and bumpy at the microscopic Incident rays
level, and the normal lines point in all different directions. Thus,
parallel incident rays will be reflected in all directions.
A beam of light will be reflected diffusely in all directions, so
this is called diffuse reflection.

Ordinary surface

Chris D'Amato PTHS 2007. Portions copyright (c) 2006 A. Van Heuvelen and E. Etkina
Physics/D'Amato 2007 Unit 21 Page 45 Period ____ Name _________________________________

11. When light travels from one medium into another medium
air something else air
(like going from air into water) its path changes when it crosses
the surface. This is called refraction.
A normal line is imagined, perpendicular to the surface between
the two media, at the point the light ray crosses.
Going from air into something else, the ray crosses the normal
line and bends towards the normal in the other medium.
Going from something else into air, the ray crosses the normal
line again and bends away from the normal.

12. Different substances cause light to refract by different Some common index of refraction values:
amounts. The amount of refraction is a characteristic of the air n =1
substance, and this is called the substance's index of refraction
n. It is a number equal to or greater than 1 which represents how water n = 1.33
much the light bends relative to air. glass n ≈ 1.5

13. Snell's law relates the incident angle and the refracted angle
Snell's law: n1 sin θ1 = n2 sin θ 2
of a beam of light as it passes from one material to another.
The incident angle θ1 (in the incident medium) and the
incident medium
refracted angle θ1 (in the refractive medium) are measured θ1 refractice index n1
from the normal.
We use subscripts like 1 and 2 to indicate different values of a
variable – like θ1 and θ 2 which indicate two different angles. refractive medium

Subscripts must be used carefully but we don't do any math with

θ2 refractive index n2
the subscript numbers themselves!

14. The four terms of Snell's law can be rearranged like any other n1 sin θ1 = n2 sin θ 2
algebraic expression to isolate any variable. n2 sin θ 2
n1 =
sin θ1
⎛ n1 sin θ1 ⎞
θ 2 = sin −1 ⎜ ⎟
⎝ n2 ⎠

Chris D'Amato PTHS 2007. Portions copyright (c) 2006 A. Van Heuvelen and E. Etkina
Physics/D'Amato 2007 Unit 21 Page 46 Period ____ Name _________________________________

15. Sine (abbreviated sin) is a function that takes any angle θ

from 0° to 360° and returns the height of a right triangle drawn in (0,1)
the unit circle as shown. Your calculator knows the value of sine (cos θ ,sin θ )
for any angle, but you need to know what it means. 90°
The function arcsin(x) or sin-1(x) is the inverse sine and it means
"the angle that has a sine of x"

sin θ

θ
0° (1, 0)
(0, 0) cos θ

16. When light moving in a medium of higher refractive index

(for example, glass or water) is incident on the interface with a n2 < n1 90°
medium of smaller refractive index (for example, air), the surface
refracted ray bends away from the normal line. When the incident n1
angle reaches a so-called critical angle θc, the refracted angle is θC
900. At incident angles greater than θc, there is no refracted light.
All of the light is reflected – called total internal reflection.
n2 < n1
surface
n1
θ > θC

Chris D'Amato PTHS 2007. Portions copyright (c) 2006 A. Van Heuvelen and E. Etkina