How do u calculate the speed of light travling in a diamond, if no information was given (like numbers).
thanks for the help, i appreciate
2007-07-29 11:07:11 · 6 answers · asked by natiassefa 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
the speed of light in any medium/material is the speed of light in a vaccum divided by the refractive index of the material.
v = c_0/n
c_0 = speed of light in a vacuum = 299 792 458 m/s exactly
n = refractive index
note: n(air) = 1.0003, so the speed of light in air is pretty close to the speed of light in a vacuum
2007-07-29 11:58:17 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Do you mean, "what experiment can you do to measure the speed of light in a diamond"?
A good way would be to measure its index of refraction. You can do this by shining a light on the diamond at a particular angle, then measuring how the light changes direction as it enters the diamond. There's a formula called Snell's law which lets you calculate the index of refraction based on the angles of the beam of light.
Once you know the index of refraction, you've basically got your answer; because it turns out that the index of refraction also equals (speed of light in diamond) divided by (speed of light in air).
2007-07-29 11:21:17 · answer #2 · answered by RickB 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Are you sure it slowed the light down? I suspect that it just took some time to bounce around the facets then left. This would have the appearance of slowing down, because it spends time inside the diamond... A bird enters a barn that is 10 feet long at 35 mph. It flies around the barn a few times and leaves. It always flies at the same speed. It appears to the viewer that the bird flies slowly in the barn, when it just spends time flying about.
2016-05-17 07:08:50 · answer #3 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If no information was given like numbers, you cannot calculate the speed of light in diamond.
For calculations we need numbers.
The speed of light in diamond is 119249188 m/s.
2007-07-29 16:09:34 · answer #4 · answered by Pearlsawme 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
you would need index of refraction of the diamond(n), I believe 2.4ish. n=c/v. c=speed of light(in vacuum) v=velocity. The frequency will not change going through, just the wavelength.
this has some numerical values your probably interested in.
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2005/JaminBennett.shtml
2007-07-29 11:20:03 · answer #5 · answered by thisisridiculus 1 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Well my first question would be does the speed of light change by traveling through the diamond? I would imagine that the frequency of the light passing through alters (which is why you see the various colors from refraction).
So if it is equal to the normal speed of light that would equate to roughly 3.0 x 10^8 meters / sec or 6.7 x 10^8 mph
2007-07-29 11:18:27 · answer #6 · answered by Chris G 2 · 0⤊ 4⤋