Ask a Teacher

Search



The absolute refractive indices of glass and water are 4/3 and 3/2 respectively. If the speed of light in glass is 2 x 10^8 m/s , calculate the speed of light in 1) vacuum 2) water
The ratio of the sine of the angle of incidence to the sine of the angle of refraction is constant.This is known as Snell’s law. Mathematically, it can be given as follows:
Here, is the relative refractive index of medium b with respect to medium a.Consider a ray of light travelling from medium B into medium A. Let v1 be the speed of light in medium A and v2 be the speed of light in medium B. Then the refractive index of medium A with respect to medium B is given by

If one medium is vacuum or air then the constant is named as absolute refractive index of the medium.


comments powered by Disqus