EXPERIMENT #5: BENDING OF LIGHT

What ideas do you have about why things look different underwater?

A plausible explanation as to why objects appear to be distorted underwater is due to the light’s
nature of wave-particle duality. This is because the light rays come from different directions as the rays
enter the water and once inside the said medium, a superposition of waves occurs. This phenomenon
causes the appearance of the object submerged to warp since either constructive or destructive
interferences happen. Also, light, being a particle, slows down when it enters the water since the photons
hit the particles in that medium. The collision of photons with the water molecules causes a variety of
speeds of light, resulting in a wave superposition that alters the true figure of objects. This phenomenon
may be the reason why the spoon in Figure 1 seemed to be magnified because the waves might have
added up giving a large appearance to the object.

Figure 1. Distortion of the image of the spoon when underwater

1.) Explore the Intro screen to find some things that happen when light rays shine into water. Figure
out how to test what happens when the light rays come from underwater. Compare your ideas
about why things look different underwater to how light rays appear to “bend.”.

With a single light source set to “ray”, the light simply bent when the incident ray entered a
medium while the “wave” setting showed the bent light in its wave character. The first demonstration
performed where the light was shone on the water made it clear that the hypothesis was erroneous. This is
because the distortion of the spoon was not due to the superposition of light waves underwater since there
was only one light source in the simulator. Wherein, the light still bent without any additional sources of
light. This observation is supported when the simulation put the laser underwater in which the “bending”
also occurred once it entered another medium, specifically the air, and no superposition happened. In
terms of the idea of light particles interacting with the medium, the concept was not clearly seen and
related in the simulation.
2.) Experiment using the tools to observe what happens to light when it shines on the water. Use
both the Ray and Wave models for light

a.) How does each tool help to investigate the behavior of light?

The laser serves as the source of light to observe how the latter behaves and interacts with a
medium. There are two modes for this laser namely, ray and wave, wherein the ray is intended to only see
the direction of light propagation and clearly measure the angle that would form. Whereas, the wave is for
observing the distribution of light. As this light reflects and bends, the incident ray generates reflected and
refracted rays. The presence of these rays creates an angle with respect to the normal line which can
explain the nature of light once it interacts with a medium. To measure the said angle, a protractor is
employed to measure the angles of incidence, reflection, and refraction. Moreover, studying light requires
seeing its behavior on or in a certain medium which is why there is a setting for the index of refraction.
This setting adjusts the said value to either acquire a desired refractive index or mimic the refractive index
of a material. Lastly, the angles of the rays are not enough to investigate light, thus, its intensity is also
considered and this can only be done by using an intensity tool, similar to a photometer.

b.) Describe the behavior of light when it shines on the water. Provide examples for a variety of
incident angles to support your description.

The ray mode of the laser produced light that reflected off the surface of the water, resulting in a
reflected ray that formed an angle with the normal line or the reflected angle. This figure is numerically
equivalent to the angle between the incident ray and the normal line or the incident angle as depicted in
Figure 2. On the other hand, a refracted angle was produced when the light went underwater which
became less than the reflected angle as the incident angle increased. Figure 2 presented that the refracted
angle continuously increased but not as drastic as the reflected angle.

Figure 2. Incident vs Response angles graph. The response angle is comprised of the reflected (blue) and refracted
(red) angles and when the 90° mark was reached, no response angle was measured.

In terms of the light intensity, Figures 3 and 4 presented that the refracted light had a higher light
intensity as the incident angle approached 90° since the incident ray is directed towards the water which
led most of the light to enter the said medium. Moreover, the light intensities for both Figures followed
their corresponding trends until the end wherein Figure 3 continued to increase while decreasing for
Figure 4. This is because the incident ray was gradually becoming parallel to the water surface which
favored intensifying the reflected ray more than the refracted ray. The trends presented suggested that the
reflected angle was directly proportional to the light intensity whereas the refracted angle had an inversely
proportional relationship to the intensity.

Figure 3. Reflected angle vs Light Intensity graph. No reflected angle was measured when the 90° incident was
reached.

Figure 4. Refracted angle vs Light Intensity graph. No refracted angle was measured when the 90° incident angle
was reached.

From the data, it was proven that light reflects and bends. There was reflection because a light ray
and its angle were observed wherein the angle of reflection was found to be equivalent to the incident
angle. This is caused by the smoothness of the surface which leads to a phenomenon called specular
reflection (Young et al., 2012). Also, there was certainly refraction or bending of light since the refracted
angle was not equivalent to the incident angle compared to its reflected counterpart. Moreover, the light
intensity measured supported the existence of the reflected and refracted lights since an amount of light
was measured at each angle, and it was recorded that the intensity corresponded to the angles of reflection
and refraction. Aside from the effect of the said angles on the light intensity, a plausible reason as to why
the intensity decreased was due to the wave nature of light. When the laser was switched to the “wave”
setting, the amount of light wave in the reflected ray was less than the incident because most of the light
was directed to the water. It can be inferred from this phenomenon that light intensity changes due to the
direction of light propagation from the laser. Wherein, if the majority of the light waves being emitted are
all going to the same path, a higher intensity would be measured. Whereas, if the laser is about to become
parallel to the water surface, not all of the light waves would be directed towards the medium itself,
reducing the intensity of the refracted ray.

(c.) What changes if the light is underwater and the light goes into the air?

The similar behavior to the light shining on the water manifested because despite the laser being
underwater, the incident light produced a reflection on the water boundary, just before the air medium.
The reflected angle still had an angle equivalent to the incident angle as presented in Figure 5. However,
once the light passed through the water and into the air, the light refracted differently. In Figure 5, the
refracted angles were initially larger than its counterpart but when they reached 50° and beyond, no
refracted angle was recorded. Compared to the situation in Figure 2, the refracted angles became higher
than the reflected angles when they entered a new medium. This phenomenon was due to the optical
density which explains why different behaviors of light are observed in various media (The Physics
Classroom, n.d.).

Figure 5. Incident vs Response angles graph. The response angle is comprised of the reflected (blue) and refracted
(red) angles.

The Oxford Languages (n.d.) defined optical density as “the degree to which a refractive medium
retards transmitted rays of light” and the indicator for this property is the index of refraction (The Physics
Classroom, n.d.). Serway and Jewett (2018, p. 906) stated that the speed of light in a medium is affected
because of the index of refraction of that medium, and since water has a considerable index of refraction,
its optical density slows down the light propagating through it. Moreover, there is a variety of scenarios
for a refraction phenomenon. Such an example was the experiment performed in which the behavior of
the refracted ray when going from air to water differed from when the laser was put underwater. As
mentioned before, the refracted ray in Figure 5 had a higher initial refracted angle and eventually dropped
to zero as the reflected angle continued to increase which was opposite to what happened in Figure 2.
Serway and Jewett (p. 906) explained that when light moves from a material with a low index of
refraction to another material with a high index of refraction, the angles of refraction are smaller than
their counterpart and their rays are bent toward the normal. However, when the light starts from a medium
with a high index of refraction to a medium with a smaller one, the refracted angles become greater than
the reflected angles and the rays are bent away from the normal. This is why the angles of refraction were
initially big but immediately dropped since the refracted ray had a tendency to move away from the
normal line. It is possible that the refracted ray did not disappear, but instead became parallel to the
surface of the medium and the particular incident angle at which this occurs is called the critical angle
Serway and Jewett (p. 915).

d.) What changes if you shine light on glass?

Similar to the previous scenario, the glass also made the light bent. However, the refracted ray in
the glass was leaning more towards the normal line compared to the water as the medium. This
phenomenon may also be due to the higher index of refraction of glass than the water.

e.) Test materials with other indexes of refraction to see if your ideas about the behavior of light
seem comprehensive.

Air to Medium:
(Medium is probably Fluorite due to n = 1.403)
 (Medium is most likely diamond due to n = 2.427)

(Custom)

Medium to air (same materials for medium):

 The behavior of light on various materials was consistent with the data that was presented earlier.
This is because in the air to medium scenarios, the light also bent and followed the same behavior as the
situation presented in Figure 2. In the medium to air scenarios, a similar behavior emerged which
supported the findings shown in Figure 5. The only difference here is the custom mode wherein a
refracted ray was still produced despite the light coming from underwater and being at the critical angle.
A plausible reason why this happened is that the index of refraction of this custom medium was not as
high as the diamond and fluorite, which would not make the said ray have an increased tendency to move
away from the normal line. In terms of the intensity, by visual inspection, a similar pattern was retained in
all of the demonstrations done wherein the intensity of the reflected ray increased while the refracted ray
decreased.

d.) Write a summary description of what happens to light when it goes from one medium to
another. Use the following vocabulary words in your summary: index of refraction, incident angle,
reflected angle, and refracted angle.

Light reflects and refracts whenever it comes into contact with a new medium. Once this happens,
reflected and refracted waves are produced and what is similar among various media is the behavior of the
reflected wave while its refracted counterpart changes. For the reflected wave, the angle of reflection or
reflected angle is similar to the incident angle, regardless of the medium. However, the refracted angle
exhibited a different behavior depending on where the starting point of the light would be. Wherein, an air
to medium scenario allows the refracted ray to be visible until the laser becomes parallel to the surface of
the medium while a medium to air situation causes the refracted angle to immediately drop once a certain
incident angle is reached. A plausible explanation as to why this happens is due to the index of refraction
of a material. This is because when the light starts to travel from a material with a low index of refraction
to a high one, the refracted ray tends to go towards the normal line. But, when the light originates from
the material with a high index of refraction and then to a lower index, the refracted ray tends to move
away from the normal, which eventually prevents the refracted ray to appear once a critical angle is
achieved. Lastly, the light intensities of the reflected and refracted rays were observed to be dependent on
their angles and the direction at which the laser directs the light propagation.

3.) Observe variation in refraction as the wavelength (color) of incident light varies using “More
Tools”

a.) How much does the angle of refraction change from 380nm to 700nm when the incident angle
is 80? Run some of your own experiments to see if you can detect a difference in refracted angles at other
incident angles. Why was 80 degrees chosen?

When the incident wave or ray strikes the surface of the two media, it was refracted and reflected.
The angle of refraction increased proportionally as the wavelength lengthened. In this simulation, despite
changes in the wavelength, the variation in refracted angles was relatively small and difficult to discern.
As presented in Table 1, if the incident angle has 30°, the difference in their angle of refraction for
wavelengths of 380 nm and 700 nm is merely 0.3°. However, if the incident angle was 80° the difference
was 0.7° and because of this, 80° was chosen as the angle of refraction as it has a more noticeable
difference than other incident angles.

Table 1. Variation of incident angle and wavelength

Wavelength Incident Angle Refraction Angle

380 nm 30° 19.2°

700 nm 30° 19.5°

380 nm 60° 34.8°

700 nm 60° 35.3°

380 nm 80° 40.4°

700 nm 80° 41.1°

b.) Use the Speed tool as you vary the wavelength to help understand why the angle of refraction varies.
Describe the results of your experiments.
Table 2 showed how changing the wavelength and the refracted angle made the speed of light
vary. The data presented that changing the angle does not show any changes in its speed. However,
changing the wavelength caused a slight change wherein if the wavelength exhibited a large increase, the
speed will also increase, but only slightly.

Table 2. Variation of refracted angle and wavelength to the speed of light

c.) Does the color of the light change during refraction or reflection?

The color of the light only depends on the frequency, neither the refraction nor reflection would
change the color of light. Changing the settings of the wavelength is essentially altering the frequency of
the wave which is why there is a color change every time the wavelength is shortened or lengthened.
When an incident wave hits the medium it only affects the speed of the light and its wavelength, but the
frequency remains. This is the reason why even though the speed of light decreased in the medium, it
maintained the same color.

4.) Explore the Prisms screen to see how your understanding of refraction applies when light travels
through a medium like glass. Give specific examples and images from the simulation to explain how
your understanding applies.

Single Ray:
 As shown in the simulations, the “main” light ray can be deflected multiple times wherein the
refracted light can be directed to wherever desired, and once a glass is oriented to some desired position,
emergent rays will come out. Not only that, several glass prisms can be combined in order to aim the light
at a specific point, particularly if a single glass cannot redirect light to that certain location. This fact is
useful, especially in astronomy because lenses are utilized to bend the incoming light and redirect it to the
observer’s eye.

Multiple Rays:

Aside from single rays, the full idea of the refraction of light is best illustrated by light with
multiple rays. A convex glass prism was used to receive the incident rays and once the latter reached the
glass, all of them refracted and focused to a single point behind the prism. This again presented the idea in
the single ray scenario wherein such prisms are employed to direct light to a location. Not only that, the
existence of a point where all the refracted rays merged revealed the working principle behind eyesight
wherein the human eye refracts the incident light and aims the said rays to focus all of them on the retina
5.) Experiment to find ways to make rainbows.
a.) Insert at least one setup where light passing through a prism gives a rainbow and describe why
a rainbow is formed.

White light is made up of all seven colors of the rainbow (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue,
Indigo, and Violet). The simulation shows that when white light is refracted through a triangular prism,
the colors bend differently, with red bending the least and violet bending the most (Shenoy, 2020). This is
because red light has the longest wavelength and hence deviates the least, whereas violet light has the
shortest wavelength and thus deviates the most. This is why the red light is at the bottom and the violet
light is at the top causing the colors to separate. This separation is known as the dispersion of light.
b.) Explain why only some types of light will yield rainbows.
Different colors of light move at varying speeds and have different refractive indexes. As a result,
the white light that passes through the refracting surface of the prism bends at different angles causing
some light to yield as rainbows and some will not (Shenoy, 2020).

6.) Show that you can use Snell’s Law ( n1sinΘ1 = n2sinΘ2) to predict the angle of reflection and
angle of refraction for several scenarios. Show your work. After you have completed the
calculations, use simulation to check your work

For the incident angle of 30 degrees light shining:

Computation:
Checking using the simulation:
a. from air into water

b. from water into air

c. from air into glass

 d. from water into glass

e. from air into a medium with an index of 1.22

Conclusion:

In this experiment, light was seen as both a particle and wave and its behavior was investigated as
it interacted with different media. The light was first studied by exploring how it reflects and refracts
when it comes into contact with a medium that has a certain index of refraction. Wherein, the light
reflects at an angle equal to the incident angle because of specular reflection and bends since the optical
density of a medium affects the speed of light, causing its direction of propagation to deviate while
traveling in the medium. It was also recorded that the angle of refraction, as opposed to the reflected
angle, was not numerically equivalent to the incident angle. Furthermore, the reflection and refraction of
light do not change the color of light despite having a decrease in its speed during refraction. Frequency is
the only parameter that can alter its color, which is why the color remained even though the light wave
lengthened and had decreased speed in the medium. In relation to this, the speed of light did not have any
considerable change despite having a large change in wavelength. Moreover, prisms were employed to
again investigate refraction but this time, the said phenomenon was examined in the context of learning
how this occurrence can be applied in the real world such as in eyes and the formation of rainbows.
Lastly, Snell’s law of refraction was utilized to better understand and appreciate how the index of
refraction of a material can be identified and affect the behavior of light. The study can be improved by
exploring the reasons behind refraction and reflection on an atomic scale because the inferences and ideas
in this paper did not fully explain why such events happen. Studying light and optics is advantageous,
especially in the field of chemistry since chemists use spectroscopic techniques in chemical analyses
which utilize the spectrum of light to identify the elements present in an analyte or substance of interest.

Members:

Regina Guzman (Contributor)

Marcus Lee (Contributor)

Stephanie Magalong (Contributor)

Joseph Mapas (Editor, Contributor)

 References

Oxford Languages. (n.d.). OPTICAL DENSITY | Meaning & Definition for UK English. Lexico.com.

Retrieved April 6, 2022, from https://www.lexico.com/definition/optical_density

Serway, R. A., & Jewett, J. W. (2018). Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern Physics. Cengage

Learning.

The Physics Classroom. (n.d.). Physics Tutorial: Optical Density and Light Speed. The Physics

Classroom. Retrieved April 6, 2022, from

https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/refrn/Lesson-1/Optical-Density-and-Light-Speed

Shenoy, M. (2020, March 14). Formation of rainbows (& how far are they) (video). Khan Academy.

Retrieved April 6, 2022, from

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/in-in-class10th-physics/in-in-the-human-eye-and-the-colou

rful-world/in-in-dispersion-of-light-in-prism/v/formation-of-rainbows-how-far-are-they-physics-k

han-academy

Young, H. D., Freedman, R. A., & Ford, A. L. (2012). Sears and Zemansky's University Physics: With

Modern Physics (A. L. Ford, Ed.). Addison-Wesley.