Mirror Mirror on the wall..

Must be able to answer:

How do mirrors work? What does the normal line mean?

Should be able to
What is the angle of the reflection?

Could be able to
What is lateral inversion?

How does light travel?

How did we prove this?

What does opaque, translucent and transparent mean?

Can you name an object that is opaque, translucent and transparent?

Where does light travel from and to?

8K Light
What is light?

Reflection Refraction
Colour Summary activities

Objects that reflect light well:

Have smooth, shiny surfaces. Give clear images because they reflect light regularly. Objects that do not reflect light well: Have rough, bumpy, dull surfaces. Dont give a clear image or they dont give an image at all!

Working in pairs, one person is the timer and the other person is the reader. The reader turns their back and has to read a list of words using a mirror. They must read each word correctly before moving on to the next word. [ ] The timer measures the time taken and the results for the whole class are recorded in a table like this:

Name Natasha Shani Rajesh

Time taken (seconds)

1. Who read the words in the quickest time? 2. Plot a bar chart of the results. 3. What was the average time taken in the class?

Name

Time taken (seconds)

1. Who read the words in the quickest time? 2. Plot a bar chart of the results. 3. What was the average time taken in the class?

Take an object and put it in front of the mirror

Is the distance between the object and the mirror smaller, the same size or bigger than the reflection of the object and the mirror?

Try this again with different sized objects. What do you notice?

Your bathroom mirror reflects light regularly so it makes a clear image, which is the same size as the object. The image appears the same distance as the object to the mirror. What is different about the image compared to the object? When an object is reflected in a normal mirror, left appears as right and right appears as left. This type of reversal is called lateral inversion.

1. Fix a plane mirror to a piece of paper and draw around it. 2. Your sheet will have the Normal line drawn on. 3. Use a ray box to shine an incident ray at the mirror plot the incident and reflected rays. 4. Measure the angles of incidence [i] and reflection [r] and record the results.

angle i
angle r
Angle of Angle of incidence [i] reflection [r]

5. Repeat for another four angles of incidence.

6. What do the results show?

Reflection can be very useful. High-visibility strips are very reflective and make sure that this cyclist gets noticed when there is little light.

How does a periscope use reflection?

The two plane mirrors must be positioned at 45 to each other. Light is reflected at right angles from the top mirror onto the bottom mirror and into the eye of the viewer. Where are periscopes used?

8K Light
What is light?

Reflection Refraction
Colour Summary activities

Take a glass of water and put a spoon or straw inside What happens to the spoon/straw? Describe what you see and why you think it is happening.

1. Place a rectangular glass block on a sheet of paper and draw around it. 2. Draw a normal at 90 to the top surface of the block.

angle i angle r

3. Shine light rays, with angles of incidence [i] of 30, 60 and 0, into the block at the point Angle of Angle of where the normal meets the incidence [i] refraction [r] glass surface. Record the 30 angle of refraction [r].

4. Repeat the investigation for rays leaving the glass block.

5. What do the results show?

60 0

The speed of light depends on the material through which the light is travelling. When light enters a different material (e.g. from air into glass), the speed of light changes.
This causes the light to bend or refract.

air

glass

The speed of light is affected by the density of the material through which it is travelling. When light enters a more dense medium (from air into glass), its speed decreases and this is why refraction occurs.

Refraction causes visual effects such as this ruler appearing to be bent.

This happens because light from the part of the ruler in the water is refracted as it travels from the water into the air. How does refraction make this stone look closer to the surface of the water than it really is? image Light rays from the stone are refracted as they leave the water. The brain assumes that these rays have travelled in straight lines and is fooled into forming an image where it thinks the light rays came from.

actual location

The Archer fish is a predator that shoots jets of water at insects near the surface of the water, e.g. on a leaf.

The Archer fish allows for the refraction of light at the surface of the water when aiming at its prey. The fish does not aim at the refracted image it sees but at a location where it knows the prey to be. prey location

image of prey