Mr

Refraction Notes

You will be given a packet of notes which describes the topics of interest for this chapter. Listed below is an assortment of web links to very well written discussions that enhance the material you are required to know. Visit the various sites indicated when you need clarification of terms and/or concepts as you work through the chapter on refraction in class.

The following links, written by graduate students for the University of Guelph in California, provide interactive Java Applets that use a three-ray diagram to demonstrate the relationship between object and image as light flows through a converging lens and a diverging lens. In class, you will be given a work packet, "Image Formation by Lenses", that contains incomplete lens diagrams. You will be required to construct the relevant ray diagrams to illustrate the relationships among the important variables. These diagrams are a prerequisite for this unit's labs and tests. While you are visiting this site, study their interactive applet that allows you to view how changes in refractive index, incident angle, and/or incident wavelength cause respective changes in the refracted ray.

The Physics Classroom (Glenbrook High School), provides a well developed section on refraction of light:

Lesson1: "Refraction at a Boundary"

Part 1: "Boundary Behavior" - The GIF animation helpfully reinforces our discussion on "Interference through Thin Films", toward the end of our refraction chapter.

Part 2: "Refraction and Sight" - Become familiar with the "broken pencil" illusion.

Part 3: "Cause of Refraction", Part 4: "Optical Density and Light Speed", Part 5: "The Direction of Bending" - These sections introduce you to terms that you must use, on the chapter test and when completing the refraction labs.

Part 6: "The Secret of the Archer Fish" - This explanation is helpful as we discuss our "apparent depth" notes.

Lesson 2: "Math of Refraction": Parts 1 through 4 - This lesson provides a very thorough discussion of Snell's Law, which is derived in a section of our notes and is used to solve problems, especially related to our first lab experiment in this chapter. The sample problems and "Check Your Understanding" problems should be solved.

Lesson 3: "Total Internal Reflection": Parts 1 - 3 - This lesson's discussion supports our notes on this subject. The illustrations are very good, as are the "Check Your Understanding" problems.

(Check out slide #10 illustrating internal reflection offered by the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada)

(An excellent interactive java applet is presented by Prof. Fu-Kwan Hwang, Dept. of Physics, National Taiwan Normal University)

(ThinkQuest: Unit 8: Geometric (Ray) Optics - click on "Total Internal Reflection")

Lesson 4: "Interesting Refraction Phenomena" - The parts of this lesson apparently have not been published by Glenbrook. Our notes include a discussion on the dispersion of light by a prism, formation of a rainbow, and the effect of our atmosphere on the length of a day (compared to the length of a day with the absence of the atmosphere).

(Prof. Hwang, NTNU, presents an excellent interactive java applet with discussion on the formation of a rainbow. Click on the white box to show how a ray of sunlight (white light) produces the selective refraction to produce the rainbow effect from ray number 3)

(Check out Prof. Hwang's java applet on the world as seen by a fish in an aquarium)

Lesson 5: "Image Formation by Lenses" - Read each part of this lesson and compare the diagrams it contains with the ray diagrams you will construct in class. The math problems in Part 6 are basic, and allow satisfactory practice prior to solving our "Refraction Problems" selection.

(The slide presentation offered by the physics department at The University of British Columbia has a simple quiz. Go to the following slide sets: #41-#43, #44, #45-#46, #47-#48,)

(Prof. Hwang, NTNU, presents an excellent interactive java applet on lenses)

(Physics 106, University of Boston, offers a java applet for lenses and mirrors)

(ThinkQuest: Unit 8: Geometric (Ray) Optics - click on those topic having to do with lenses and images)

Lesson 6: "The Eye" - Our notes include a section on the human eye. Again, use the parts of this lesson to reinforce our discussion in class.

Another source for information on refraction is offered by the physics department at The University of Cincinnati's Raymond Walters College.