Answer the questions below in your own words. Use specific examples and explain your reasoning.
Think about a time you saw something look shifted, bent, or distorted because it was in or behind water, glass, plastic, or another transparent material.
Describe what you saw.
Explain how that observation connects to the idea that light changes direction when it changes speed moving from one material into another.
Someone at home puts a straw in a glass of water and says:
“Why does the straw look broken if it’s obviously still straight?”
Explain what is happening without using equations.
In your answer, describe how light rays travel from the straw, through the water, into the air, and then to your eye.
A ray of light travels from air into glass. The index of refraction of air is approximately 1.00, and the index of refraction of the glass is 1.50.
The angle of incidence is 40°.
Use Snell's Law to find the angle of refraction.
Then explain whether the light bends toward the normal or away from the normal, and why that makes sense.
Imagine you are explaining to a younger student how a magnifying glass makes an object look larger.
Use the idea of refraction to explain how a lens changes the path of light rays.
In your answer, connect the bending of light to how lenses can form images that appear larger, smaller, closer, or farther away.