Lab 11 - Reflection and Refraction Questions
Question 1. Why was the image distance in part A larger than the object distance?
The image distance was larger than the object distance due to the magnification
being slightly larger than 1.
Question 2. When is the angle of refraction greater than the angle of incidence?
When n1 is larger than n2
Question 3. Would the angle of reflection in part A have changed if the whole
experiment was done underwater? Why or why not? How about the angle
of refraction in Part B? Why or why not?
The reflection part wouldn’t change because reflection doesn’t depend on the
refraction index of the medium. Part b would because water has a different index
of refraction than air.
Question 4. The index of refraction of Acrylic is 1.49. Which method (Snell's law or
ratio of distance traveled) do you think is the best for determining the index
of refraction of a substance? Explain why. (Hint: Consider what you
measured in each case and what you did with those measurements.)
Using Snell’s law would be more accurate because it doesn’t depend on the
distance travelled. Distance traveled ration may be off due to different distances traveled
and may be inconsistent unlike Snell’s method.
Lab 11 - Reflection and Refraction
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Question 5. In step B you solved for the index of refraction using your protractor. Show
on your figure how you can solve the index of refraction using trigonometry.
Recalculate the index of refraction. Which method gave the greater
accuracy? Why?
I really don’t know what this is asking. But I’m going to guess that trigonometry
is more since protractors have measuring error and can’t get as close to the exact answer
as using trigonometry can.
Question 6. How could you modify the experiment to get even greater accuracy in your
measurements?
Laser measuring tools would help a lot. Not using rulers.
Question 7. The speed of light in a vacuum is approximately 3.0 x 10 8 m/s. Using your
data what is the speed of light in acrylic?
Do the speed of light divided by the index of refraction.
.
.
= 2.05 ∗ 10 𝑚/𝑠
Lab 11 - Reflection and Refraction
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