Abstract In this project, we will use the physics of refraction to measure the sugar content of a clearliquid solution (e.g.

, apple juice, or a clear soda drink). A laser pointer and a hollow glass prismwill be used. (to be updated and fully versed until the project is done.) Objectives General To observe the wonderful world of optics in our daily life To apply the breathtaking applications of lasers Generally, to have an enjoyable experience with actual physics through experimentation and thisscientific breakthrough Specific The objective of this experiment is to see if sugar concentrations in water can be determinedusing the index of refraction of the solutionIntroductionNo doubt you have noticed the odd "bending" effect that you see when you put a straw (orpencil) in a glass of water. The water refracts the light, so the straw appears to bend at an anglewhen you look at the interface between the air and the water. Refraction is the change indirection of a wave due to a change in its speed. This is most commonly seen when a wave passes from one medium to another. Refraction of light is the most commonly seen example, but anytype of wave can refract when it interacts with a medium, for example when sound waves pass from one medium into another or when water waves move into water of a different depth. Refraction is also responsible for rainbows and for the splitting of white light into a rainbow-spectrum as it passes through a glassprism. Glass has a higher refractive index than air and the different frequencies of light travel at different speeds (dispersion), causing them to berefracted at different angles, so that you can see them. The different frequencies correspond to different colors observed.While refraction allows for beautiful phenomena such as rainbows it may also produce peculiar optical phenomena, such as mirages and Fata Morgana. These are caused by the change of the refractive index of air with temperature.Snell's law is used to calculate the degree to which light is refracted when travelling from one medium to another. In optics, angles are measured from a line perpendicular to the surface with which the light is interacting. This line is called the surface normal, or simply, the normal (dashed gray line in Figure 2). The angle of incidence,1, and the angle of refraction,2, are shown in Figure 2. Snell's Law says that the relative index of refraction of the two materials(RI=n2/n1) is equal to the the sine of the angle of incidence (sine1) divided by the sine of theangle of refraction (sine2). What Snell's Law tells us is that the greater the relative index of refraction, the more the light bends. The index of refraction of a liquid depends on the density of the liquid. Dissolving sugar in water results in a solution with density greater than that of water alone. Since sugar water is more dense than plain water, sugar water should have a higher index of refraction than plainwater.Recently some metamaterials have been created which have a negative refractive index . With metamaterials, we can also obtain the total refraction phenomena when the wave impedances of the two media are matched. There is no reflected wave.Also, since refraction can make objects appear closer than they are, it is responsible for allowing water to magnify objects. First, as light is entering a drop of water, it slows down. If the water's surface is not flat, then the light will be bent into a new path. This round shape will bend the light outwards and as it spreads out, the image you see gets larger.A useful analogy in explaining the refraction of light would be to imagine a marching bandas they march from pavement (a fast medium) into mud (a slower medium) The marchers on the side that runs into the mud first will slow down first. This causes the whole band to pivot slightly toward the normal (make a smaller angle from the normal). Review of Related Literature

This form of Snell's law was actually published by Descartes as the law of Sines. Snell diddiscover the relationship but articulated it in a different way. Today it is the form used byDescartes that is called Snell's law. The law is defined as: n1 sinQ 1 = n2 sinQ2 Where n is the refractive index and Q the corresponding angles as shown. The refractive index is the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum to the speed of light in a given medium. So, if the top part of the diagram is air, n1 is the speed of light in air and if the bottom partis glass, n2 is the speed of light in glass, both relative to the speed of light in a vacuum. Snell and Descartes realized that when light went from one medium to another, the angles & refractive indexes of the media determined the path that light took. The relationship is afunction of the sine of the angles. (http://www.yorku.ca/eye/snell.htm) Refraction is the bending of the path of a light wave as it passes across the boundary separating two media. Refraction is caused by the change in speed experienced by a wave when it changes medium. We have learned that light can either refract towards the normal(when slowingdown while crossing the boundary) or away from the normal(when speeding up while crossing the boundary). To begin, consider a hemi-cylindrical dish filled with water. Suppose that a laser beam isdirected towards the flat side of the dish at the exact center of the dish. The angle of incidence can be measured at the point of incidence. This ray will refract, bending towards the normal(since the light is passing from a medium in which it travels fast into one in which it travels slow -FST). Once the light ray enters the water, it travels in a straight line until it reaches the second boundary. At the second boundary, the light ray is approaching along the normal to the curvedsurface (this stems from the geometry of circles). The ray does not refract upon exiting since the angle of incidence is 0-degrees (recall the If I Were An Archer Fish page). The ray of laser light therefore exits at the same angle as the refracted ray of light made at the first boundary. These two angles can be measured and recorded. The angle of incidence of the laser beam can bechanged to 5-degrees and new measurements can be made and recorded. This process can be repeated until a complete data set of accurate values has been collected. The data below show arepresentative set of data for such an experiment

Angle of Incidence (degrees) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70

Angle of Refraction (degrees) 0 3.8 7.5 11.2 14.9 18.5 22.1 25.5 28.9 32.1 35.2 38 40.6 43 45