The rule says that light bends toward the normal line when it passes from less dense to denser media, but when I did the dipped pencil experiment, it always showed the opposite whatever angle I look from. Please help! I'm confused! Thanks!
2007-08-12 20:20:27 · 2 answers · asked by Milo 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
The pencil which you are seeing is the image of the pencil and for that the light from the pencil is coming out of water into air (that is from a denser medium to a lighter medium and thus bends away from the normal.
Try passing a thin beam of light through a glass slab and see the difference in the angle. But here too, when the beam emerges from the other side, the angle is reversed and the beam emerges parallel to the incident beam but appears to emerge from a different point.
2007-08-12 21:26:44 · answer #1 · answered by Swamy 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
don't look at the pencil, imagine the PATH of the light reflected from the pencil.
2007-08-13 03:29:36 · answer #2 · answered by disco legend zeke 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋