Try it on paper first. A hint, the key idea and the worked solution are here when you need them.
A ray of light in air meets the flat surface of a glass plate of refractive index . The angle of incidence is . Find the angle of reflection, the angle of refraction and the angle between the reflected ray and the refracted ray.
A wavefront is a surface of equal phase, and a ray is at right angles to it. In a medium of index the speed is and the wavelength is , while the frequency stays the same. Snell's law follows from Huygens' construction.
Have you tried it?
Work it out on paper first. It is fine to get stuck or make a mistake: that is how we learn. When you are ready, go through the solution one step at a time, and check each step against your own.
Step 1. The reflected ray. The angle of reflection equals the angle of incidence: .
Step 2. The refracted ray. , so .
Step 3. The angle between the two rays. The reflected ray is above the surface. The refracted ray is below it. Together the angle is .
Answer: ; ; .
Check. The last angle is very close to a right angle. For one special angle of incidence, called Brewster's angle, it is exactly . For this glass that angle is . You will meet it in course three of this chapter.
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