Rays & Mirrors Pre-Lab

November 11th, 2010

Matthew Trueblood
Physics 255B Section 002

Object:

The object of this lab is to further gain understanding and knowledge of reflection and
refraction of light for mirrors and lenses using the ray approximation.

Apparatus:

1) Two Plane Mirrors

2) Piece of paper
3) Ray Box
4) Planoconvex lens
5) Double convex lens
6) Diverging lens
7) Red and Green filters
8) Concave mirror

Procedure:

1) Part one is for the law of reflection...Place a plane mirror on a piece of paper.
2) Set the ray box so that a single ray exits the box
3) Shine the ray toward the mirror at any angle, between 20 and 30 degrees.
4) Trace on the paper the incident and reflect rays labeling them “I” and “r”.
5) Trace a line along the silvered edge before moving mirror
6) Draw a perpendicular line to the line representing the silvered surface of the mirror
7) Measure the angle pheta intial between the incident ray and the perpendicular. Measure the
angle pheta between the reflected ray and the perpendicular.
8) Compare these results with the results predicted by the Law of Reflection
9) Part two is for the corner mirror...Stand two mirrors on a piece of paper. Form a right angle.
10) On paper, trace the incident and two reflection rays, plus the backsides of the mirror.
11) Without moving the paper, rotate the mirrors a few degrees and repeat step 10.
12) Rotate the mirrors slowly by the paper underneath them and describe how the direction of
the final beam varies as the mirrors move.
13) Part three is for the converging lens...remove the masks from the box so that all rays are
shown.
14) Place the plano-convex lens close enough to the ray box so the rays passing through will
emerge parallel.
15) Place the double convex lens on the paper such that the light enters the double convex lens.
16) Trace incoming and outgoing rays and the double convex lens outline.
17) For part four (diverging lens), we follow the same steps as part three but replace the lenses.
18) Part five is for reflection from plane mirrors...place the red and green filters over the slits on
the box so that the outermost rays are red and green.
19) Place the plan-convex lens close enough to the box to produce parallel rays.
 20) Trace the paths of each ray for reflections off each mirror.
21) Part six is for concave and convex spherical mirrors...use all the rays from the ray box and
use the plano-convex lens to make them parralel. Place the concave mirrors in the path of
the parralel rays.
22) Trace incoming and reflected rays, and reflecting surface of the mirror
23) The focal length of the concave mirror is distance from the center of the mirror to the point
of intersection of reflected rays. Measure this.
24) Repeat above steps using convex mirror.

Theory Statement:

Before the 19th century, light was accepted as streams of particles. This theory was put together
by Isaac Newton. Newton was able to explain many known experimental facts concerning the nature of
light with this theory. However, it was actually a Dutch physicist named Christian Huygens that
showed the laws of reflection and refraction could be explained by wave theory of light.