Rays and waves

Starter
• Can you remember all the ways light can travel through a medium?

Absorption
Refraction
• Write down as many as you can in 5 minutes.
Reflection
Transmission
Scattering
 Light rays and waves
• Light travels at light speed (big surprise) which is around
300,000,000 m/s.
• It travels through a vacuum as a wave and transfers energy.
• Humans can only see 7 distinct colours, ROYGBIV
• There are a lot more frequencies we can’t see. This is shown on the
electromagnetic spectrum.

Monochromatic is when there is just

one frequency of light being produced.
 Reflection

Angle of incidence = Angle of reflection

In a reflected virtual image, the image is laterally inverted,

which means it is flipped left to right
It is also the same size and the same distance from the mirror
as the object.

I’ll show you how to draw a reflected image

on the other board.
Refraction
• When light enters a denser medium, it slows down, and because of
this it bends.

The refractive index is how optically dense a medium is

The refractive index can be calculated in multiple ways:
 Total internal reflection

• An optical fiber is basically a long, bendy glass tube that carries information
as light over long distances.
• They carry large amounts of data, and can be used in medicine for things like
an endoscope.
• It does this through total internal reflection.

Total internal reflection is when The critical angle is the

the angle of incidence goes angle of incidence at
above the critical angle, where which the refracted ray
all the light is reflected inside the runs parallel to the
medium. medium’s surface.
Lenses
• A convex lens refracts the incident ray TOWARDS the focal point.
• In an image produced by a lens, it is:
• A real image
• Inverted (upside down)
• Bigger or smaller, depending on the distance from the focal point.

Draw out some lens diagrams in your books,

one where the object is between the lens and
the focal point and one where the object is
away from the lens.
 Human Eye
• The eye also contains a lens, which is able to change its shape due
to the ciliary muscles, which contract and expand.
• When they contract, the lens is stretched and objects far away are
seen.
• When they expand, the lens is compressed and nearby objects are
seen.
Range of vision is the Long and short
distance from the sightedness are caused by
nearest point to the the eye being slightly
furthest point the eye shorter or longer, meaning
can focus on. the focal point is ahead of
or behind the retina.
Can be fixed with
convex/concave
glasses
 The EM SPECTRUM
• As you go from Radio to Gamma, the frequency gets higher, and the
wavelength gets shorter.
• Rabbits, Mate, In, Very, Unusual, Xpensive, Gardens

Uses and dangers

Communications
• Analogue signals
• Different frequency and
amplitude, (FM and AM radio
use this)
• Digital signals
• Contain only two states, On (1)
and Off (0), and doesn’t have
any other values in between
• Digital signals with interference
have predictable shapes so it is
easier to clean up.
Questions
1. The speed of light in some glass is 2.0 x 10^8 m/s, what is the
refractive index of the glass?
2. A laser hits a block of glass at 80 degrees, and leaves the block at
60 degrees, what is the refractive index?
3. Calculate the critical angle for both of these glass blocks.
4. Give one use of each of the frequencies on the EM spectrum.
Answers
1. 1.5
2. 1.14
3. 1)41.8 2) 61.6
4.