This document describes an experiment demonstrating the physics concept of refraction using a glass of water. The experiment involves drawing an arrow on a note card and placing it behind a glass of water. As the note card is moved back, the arrow appears to reverse when viewed through the glass. This is due to the bending of light, or refraction, as it passes from air into the glass and water. The glass acts as a magnifying glass, causing the light rays to bend toward the center and cross, making the arrow appear reversed beyond the focal point.
This document describes an experiment demonstrating the physics concept of refraction using a glass of water. The experiment involves drawing an arrow on a note card and placing it behind a glass of water. As the note card is moved back, the arrow appears to reverse when viewed through the glass. This is due to the bending of light, or refraction, as it passes from air into the glass and water. The glass acts as a magnifying glass, causing the light rays to bend toward the center and cross, making the arrow appear reversed beyond the focal point.
This document describes an experiment demonstrating the physics concept of refraction using a glass of water. The experiment involves drawing an arrow on a note card and placing it behind a glass of water. As the note card is moved back, the arrow appears to reverse when viewed through the glass. This is due to the bending of light, or refraction, as it passes from air into the glass and water. The glass acts as a magnifying glass, causing the light rays to bend toward the center and cross, making the arrow appear reversed beyond the focal point.
This document describes an experiment demonstrating the physics concept of refraction using a glass of water. The experiment involves drawing an arrow on a note card and placing it behind a glass of water. As the note card is moved back, the arrow appears to reverse when viewed through the glass. This is due to the bending of light, or refraction, as it passes from air into the glass and water. The glass acts as a magnifying glass, causing the light rays to bend toward the center and cross, making the arrow appear reversed beyond the focal point.
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Physics in a Glass: Reversing Arrows
(Lenses)
What you Need:
A glass Water A note card A marker
What to Do: 1. Fill your glass of water. 2. Draw a horizontal arrow on a note card. 3. Put the note card behind the glass of water and slowly move the note card back. Look through the glass from the front and observe the arrow. What appears to happen to it?
What's Going On?
-You have just demonstrated a physics concept called refraction,
the bending of light.
-When the arrow is moved to a particular distance behind the
glass, it looks like it reversed itself. When light passes from one material to another, it can bend or refract. In the experiment that you just completed, light traveled from the air, through the glass, through the water, through the back of the glass, and then back through the air, before hitting the arrow. Anytime that light passes from one medium, or material, into another, it refracts.
-Just because light bends when it travels through different
materials, doesn't explain why the arrow reverses itself. To explain this, you must think about the glass of water as if it is a magnifying glass. -When light goes through a magnifying glass the light bends toward the center. Where the light all comes together is called the focal point, but beyond the focal point the image appears to reverse because the light rays that were bent pass each other and the light that was on the right side is now on the left and the left on the right, which makes the arrow appear to be reversed. St. Augustine’s School of Iba, Inc. Iba, Zambales S.Y 2019-2020
