Try it on paper first. A hint, the key idea and the worked solution are here when you need them.
A technician has a plano-convex lens of glass with refractive index . The curved face has a radius of . She wants to make a concave mirror from it and she can silver either face. Find the focal length of the equivalent mirror in each case. Then a pin is placed in front of the lens on the axis. Find the image distance when the curved face is silvered, and the magnification when the plane face is silvered. Use positive distances for real images in front of the lens.
A lens with one silvered face acts as a mirror of power . A plane face has and a silvered curved face has . For the mirror, with and positive in front. A lens cut across keeps in each piece.
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.
Given. , and .
Plan. We find the power for each silvered face, then use the mirror formula for each.
Step 1. Curved face silvered. , so .
Step 2. Plane face silvered. , so .
Step 3. The image with the curved face silvered. We want , so and , a real image in front.
Step 4. The image with the plane face silvered. , so . The image is virtual, behind the mirror. The magnification is , upright.
Answer: , , and .
Watch out. The pin at is inside the focal length of the plane-silvered mirror (), so that image is virtual. It is outside the focal length of the curved-silvered mirror (), so that image is real.
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