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Throughout the centuries, different characteristics of waves such as reflection and refraction have confused scientists as to whether light is a wave or particle. In this lab we studied the reflection and refraction of light. A reflection of light occurs when light energy returns to its original medium after striking a boundary. The law of reflection states the incident and reflected rays are equal, and they, along with the normal, all exist in the same plane. The refraction of light is the direction light changes when passing from one medium to another. The law of refraction is defined in Snell’s Law.
To learn about reflection and refraction, we used mirrors, glass blocks and prisms. We arranged them in a certain fashion, and then drew rays, which are imaginary lines that perpendicular to the wave front in the direction the wave is travelling, to demonstrate the refraction and the reflection of the light. By finding the reflection, we were then able to find the object and image and their distances. In part one of the experiment, we used a flat mirror to draw our rays of reflection and incidence. We determined the angle measure, and then the distances of the image and object. In part two, we used a glass block to measure refraction. We pinpointed the rays and determined the angles of incidence and refraction. In part three we used a glass prism to determine our rays. We were then able to measure the angles of incidence and deviation then plotted a graph of Angle Deviation versus Incident Angles to find the minimum deviation.