3.18 Refractive Index

Recall and use the relationship between refractive index, angle of incidence and angle of refraction...


Refractive index is The ratio of the velocity of light in a vacuum to its velocity in a specified medium or simply put: how much the light is bent/refracted when it enters a specific medium.


to calculate the refractive index we use the formula:

n is the refractive index (this is purely a number and has no units)

i is the angle of incidence (in degrees °)
r is the angle of refraction (in degrees, °)