June 2, 2011

3.19 calculating the refractive index

Describe an experiment to determine the refractive index of glass, using a glass block.

Using the formula for refractive index isn't too hard once you've tried it a few times...

taking the glass block from the worksheet in the previous post... 
the angle of incidence is 40°
and the angle of refraction is 25°
so:





so the refractive index of a perspex block is roughly 1.52 (but remember there aren't any units)

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