The Law of Reflection

The law of reflection works perfectly

with light and the smooth surface of a
mirror. However, you can apply this law
to other situations. It can help you win a
game of pool or pass a basketball to
friend on the court.
The Law of Reflection
The law of reflection states that when an
object hits a surface, its angle of incidence
will equal the angle of reflection. This is
true when the object is light and the
surface is a flat, smooth mirror. When the
object and the surface are larger and lack
smooth surfaces (like basketball and a
gym floor), the angles of incidence and
reflection are nearly but not always exactly
equal. The angles are close enough that
understanding the law of reflection can
help you improve your game.
Example. A light ray strikes a flat
mirror with a 30-degree angle of
incidence. Draw a ray diagram to
show how the light ray interacts with
the mirror. Label the normal line, the
incident ray, and the reflected ray.
Activity 1. Answer the following:

1. When we talk about angles of incidence and reflection, we often talk about the
normal. The normal to a surface is an imaginary line that is perpendicular to the
surface. The normal line starts where the incident ray strikes the mirror. A normal
line is drawn for you in the sample given.
a. Draw a diagram that shows a mirror with a normal line and a ray of light hitting
the mirror at an angle of incidence of 60 degrees.
b. In the diagram above, label the angle of reflection. How many degrees is this
angle of reflection?
2. Light strikes a mirror’s surface at 20 degrees to the normal. What will the angle of
reflection be?
3. A ray of light strikes a mirror. The angle formed by the incident ray and the reflected
ray measures 90 degrees. What are the measurements of the angle of incidence
and the angle of reflection?
4. In a game of basketball, the ball is bounced (with no spin) toward a player at an
angle of 40 degrees to the normal. What will the angle of reflection be? Draw a
diagram that shows this play. Label the angles of incidence and reflection and the
normal.
Refraction
When light rays cross from one
material to another they bend. This
bending is called refraction. Refraction
is a useful phenomenon. All kinds of
optics, from glasses to camera lenses to
binoculars depend on refraction.
If you are standing on the shore
looking at a fish in a stream, the
fish appears to be in a slightly
different place than it really is.
That’s because light rays that
bounce off the fish are refracted
at the boundary between water
and air. If you are a hunter trying
to spear this fish, you better
know about this phenomenon or
the fish will get away.
Why do light rays bend as they cross from water into air?

A light ray bends because light travels at different speeds in

different materials. In a vacuum, light travels at a speed of 3 ×
108 𝑚Τ𝑠𝑒𝑐 . But when light travels through a material, it is
absorbed and re-emitted by each atom or molecule it hits. This
process of absorption and emission slows the light ray’s speed.
We experience this slowdown as a bend in the light ray. The
greater the difference in the light ray’s speed through two
different materials, the greater the bend in the path of the ray.
The 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑥 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 (𝑛) for a material is the
ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum to the
speed of light in the material.
𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑣𝑎𝑐𝑢𝑢𝑚
𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑥 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 =
𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑙
𝒄
𝒏=
𝒗
The index of refraction for some common materials is given below:

Material Index of
refraction
Vacuum 1.0
Air 1.0001
Water 1.33
Glass 1.5
Diamond 2.42
Example. Calculate the speed of
light in emerald using its index
of refraction of 1.58 and speed
of light in a vacuum
8 Τ
(3 × 10 𝑚 𝑠𝑒𝑐).
Could the index of refraction for a
material ever be less than 1.0?
The index of refraction will never be less
than one because that would require
the speed of light in a material to be
faster than the speed of light in a
vacuum. Nothing in the universe travels
faster than that.
Why the index of refraction for air (a gas) is smaller
than the index of refraction for a solid like glass?
The index of refraction for air is less than that of
glass because a gas like air is so much less dense
than a solid like glass. The light rays are slowed
each time they bump into an atom or molecule
because they are absorbed and re-emitted by
the particle. A light ray in a solid bumps into
many more particles than a light ray traveling
through a gas
ACTIVITY 2. Answer the following:
Material Index of
1.When a light ray moves
refraction
from water into air, does it
Vacuum 1.0
slow down or speed up? Air 1.0001
2.When a light ray moves Water 1.33
from water into glass, does Glass 1.5
it slow down or speed up? Diamond 2.42

3. Calculate the speed of light in air, water, glass, and

diamond using the index of refraction and speed of light
in a vacuum (3 × 108 𝑚Τ𝑠𝑒𝑐).
Which way does the light ray bend?

Now let’s look at some ray diagrams

showing refraction. To make a refraction
ray diagram, draw a solid line to show the
boundary between the two materials
(water and air in this case). Arrows are
used to represent the incident and
refracted light rays. The normal is a
dashed line drawn perpendicular to the
boundary between the surfaces. It starts
at the point where the incident ray hits the
boundary.
As you can see, the light ray is bent
toward the normal as it crosses from
air into water. Light rays always
bend toward the normal when they
move from a low- 𝑛 to a high- 𝑛
material. The opposite occurs when
light rays travel from a high-𝑛 to a
low- 𝑛 material. These light rays
bend away from the normal.
The amount of bending occurs depends on the difference in the index of refraction of
the two materials. A large difference in 𝑛 causes a greater bend than a small
difference.
Activity 3. Answer the following:
1. A light ray moves from water (𝑛=1.33) to a transparent
plastic (polystyrene 𝑛 =1.59). Will the light ray bend
toward or away from the normal?
2. A light ray moves from sapphire ( 𝑛 =1.77) to air
(𝑛=1.0001). Does the light ray bend toward or away from
the normal?
3. Which light ray will be bent more, one moving from
diamond (𝑛=2.42) to water (𝑛=1.33), or a ray moving
from sapphire (𝑛=1.77) to air (𝑛=1.0001)?
 Material 𝑛
Helium 1.0004
Water 1.33
Emerald 1.58
Cubic Zirconia 2.17
4. The diagrams below show light traveling from water (A) into another material (B).
Using the chart above, label material B for each diagram as helium, water, emerald, or
cubic zirconia.
 SNELL’S LAW
For a given pair of substances, the ratio of the sine
of the angle of incidence to the sine of the angle of
refraction is constant.

𝒏𝟏 𝐬𝐢𝐧 𝜽𝟏 = 𝒏𝟐 𝐬𝐢𝐧 𝜽𝟐
The subscripts 1 and 2 refer to medium 1 and
medium 2, 𝑛1 and 𝑛2 are indices of refraction, and 𝜃1
and 𝜃2 are the angles of incidence and refraction,
respectively, measured with respect to the normal line.
Example 1. A light ray passes through
the side of a glass of water and makes
0
an angle of 50 with the normal line. Find
the directions of the reflected and
refracted rays.
𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑠 = 1.5
𝑛𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 = 1.33
Example 2. A beam of light in air
0
makes an angle of 35 with the
surface of an unknown material. The
0
angle of refraction is 21 . What is
the index of refraction of the
unknown material?
Activity 4. Solve the following:
1. A ray of light passes from a transparent substance with a refractive index of 1.3 to
another transparent substance of a refractive index of 1.8. The angle of incidence is 350.
Find the angle of refraction.
2. A light ray passes through the side of a glass of water. The angle of refraction is 450.
Compute for the angle of reflection.
3. A flashlight is frozen into a block of ice (n = 1.31). If its beam strikes the surface of the ice
at an angle of incidence of 370, what is the angle of refraction?
4. What is the angle of refraction of a beam of light that enters the surface of a lake at an
angle of incidence of 500?
5. A beam of light strikes a panel of glass at an angle of incidence of 600. If the angle of
refraction is 350, what is the index of refraction of the glass?
6. A ray of light passes through a plane boundary separating two media whose indexes of
refraction are n1=1.5 and n2=1.3. (a) If the ray goes from medium 1 to medium 2 at an
angle of incidence of 450, what is the angle of refraction? (b) If the ray goes from medium
2 to medium 1 at the same angle of incidence, what is the angle of refraction?
7. A layer of benzene (n = 1.50 is floating on water. Find the angle of refraction in the water
of a light ray whose angle of incidence from air to the benzene is 450.
 DOPPLER SHIFT
You learned about Doppler shift as it relates to sound in previous
lessons. The Doppler shift is also an important tool used by
astronomers to study the motion of objects, such as stars and
galaxies, in space. For example, if an object is moving toward Earth,
the light waves it emits are compressed, shifting them toward the
blue end (shorter wavelengths, higher frequencies) of the visible
spectrum. If an object is moving away from earth, the light waves it
emits are stretched, shifting them toward the red end (longer
wavelengths, lower frequencies) of the visible spectrum.
Astronomers use a spectrometer
to determine which elements are
found in stars and other objects in
space. When burned, each
element on the periodic table
produces a characteristic set of
spectral lines. When an object in
space is moving very fast, its
spectral lines show the
characteristic patterns for the
elements it contains. However,
these lines are shifted.
If the object is moving away
from Earth, its spectral lines
are shifted toward the red
end of the spectrum to a
longer wavelength. If the
object is moving toward Earth,
its spectral lines are shifted
toward the blue end of the
spectrum to a shorter
wavelength.
By analyzing the shift in wavelength, you can also
determine the speed at which a star is moving. The faster
a star is moving, the larger the shift in wavelength. The
following proportion is used to help you calculate the
speed of a moving star. The speed of light is a constant
value equal 𝟑 × 𝟏𝟎𝟖 𝒎Τ𝒔𝒆𝒄.

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒕𝒉

=
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒖𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒘𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒕𝒉
Example. The spectral lines emitted by
a distant galaxy are analyzed. One of
the lines for hydrogen has shifted from
450 nm to 498 nm.
a.What is the difference in wavelength?
b.What is the speed of the galaxy?
c.Is the galaxy moving away from or
toward Earth?
 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟 498 𝑛𝑚 − 450 𝑛𝑚
8
=
3 × 10 𝑚Τ𝑠𝑒𝑐 450 𝑛𝑚

48 𝑛𝑚
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓 = 3 × 108 𝑚Τ𝑠𝑒𝑐 = 3.2 × 107 𝒎Τ𝒔 𝒆𝒄
450 𝑛𝑚

The galaxy is moving away from Earth at a

speed of 32 million meters per second.
Activity 2. Answer the following problems and show your work.
1. One of the spectral lines for a star has shifted from its stationary value of 535 nm
to 545 nm.
a. What is the difference in wavelength?
b. What is the speed of the star?
c. Is the star moving away from or toward Earth?
2. One of the spectral lines for a star has shifted from its stationary value of 560 nm
to 544 nm.
a. What is the difference in wavelength?
b. What is the speed of the star?
c. Is the star moving away from or toward Earth?
3. A star is moving away from Earth at 7 × 106 𝑚/𝑠𝑒𝑐.
a. The stationary wavelength of a spectral line is 450 nm. What is the difference in
wavelength between the stationary and shifted line?
b. Is the spectral line being shifted to a shorter or longer wavelength?
c. What is the wavelength of the shifted line?