Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Reading Assignment: Read Kipnis Chapter 2 Reflection of Light, Section I, II, III and Chapter 3 Mirrors, Section I. I have also summarized some of the material in the paragraphs below.
4.1
Introduction
It is discussed in the Chapter 1 in the text that in order to see things one needs good eyes and an unobstructed line of view and, if the object does not emit light by itself, there must be a source of light shining on it. According to the intromission theory, the object must send or reflect light towards the eye and in sufficient quantity. Thus, we have to understand how light is reflected from materials and other natural bodies. To make this as simple as possible we will discuss reflection from plane mirrors. An interesting question is whether you can see a mirror. When you look at a mirror you may see dust, a scratch, or yourself depending on the orientation of the mirror. The dust and the scratch are objects on the mirror but not the mirror itself. My mirror has neither scratches nor dust on it. Myself is only a reflection. Unlike dust, I am seen only if I look in the mirror at a particular angle. Probably, the mirror itself is invisible. What you see either in or on a mirror is the result of reflection of light: a portion of light received by a body from a light source is transferred to the eye. One way of studying reflection is by observing the trajectories of the incident and reflected light rays which you will do in the home laboratory exercises. This is also called normal reflection and is governed by the Law of Reflection, which you will study in the Home Lab. It states that the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection.
object and at the same distance from it; and 3) the reflected and incident rays make equal angles with the perpendicular to the mirror at the point of incidence. This is getting pretty close to the truth. It is important to note that in demonstrating the law of reflection Greek philosophers put more emphasis on reasoning than on experiment. In this course we will put equal amounts of emphasis on experiment and reasoning. To demonstrate the law of reflection you will conduct several experiments at home and answer questions in the exercises taking advantage of todays availability of laser pointers and mirrors.
The Normal
R I
Incident Ray
References:
1. N. Kipnis, Rediscovering Optics, Bena Press, 1993, ISBN 0-9636784-0-X Chapter I, p.