Why does light change its direction? - ProProfs Discuss
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Why does light change its direction?

Asked by John Adney, Last updated: Mar 26, 2024

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Yashu Dhiman

Yashu Dhiman

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Yashu Dhiman
Yashu Dhiman, Content Writer, Diploma in Literature, Noida, India

Answered Dec 29, 2020

Since the density of glass is different from the desire of air, light can change direction as it passes through a glass prism. The speed of the light passing through the prism slows since it's harder for the light to penetrate it. Air is much thinner, so the light can pass through easily. The decreased speed is what causes the direction to change. This is called refraction.

A good example of refraction is how the light changes direction in a swimming pool. If you are standing in a pool and look at something sitting on the bottom, you will notice that the position seems to change slightly than if you look at it underwater. This is because the water slows down the light.

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W. Kaye

W. Kaye

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W. Kaye
W. Kaye, Ex-Marine, Post Graduate, Chapel Hill

Answered Dec 23, 2020

Light switches direction when passing through a prism because the density of air is different from glass concentration. Therefore, the speed changes when something is optically dense; it is more difficult for the light to move through it, making the speed decrease.

The law of reflection maintains that on reflection from a smooth surface, the reflected ray's angle is equal to the incident ray's angle. The reflected ray is always in the plain mirror and is characterized by the incident ray and the exterior. The law of reflection can be applied to comprehend the images created by straight and curved mirrors.

Unlike mirrors, most natural surfaces are hard on the scale of the lights' wavelength, and parallel incident light rays are reflected in several different directions or diffusely. Diffuse reflection is responsible for the capacity to see most illuminated surfaces from any view. Rays reach the eyes after reflecting off every portion of the surface.

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