1.3 Refraction

You may often notice some odd things when looking into a fish tank. For example, you may see the same fish appearing to be in two different places (Figure 1.12). This happens because light coming from the fish to you changes direction when it leaves the tank, and in this case, it can travel two different paths to get to your eyes. The changing of a light ray’s direction (loosely called bending) when it passes through substances of different refractive indices is called refraction and is related to changes in the speed of light, $v=c\text{/}n$. Refraction is responsible for a tremendous range of optical phenomena, from the action of lenses to data transmission through optical fibers.

Figure 1.12 (a) Looking at the fish tank as shown, we can see the same fish in two different locations, because light changes directions when it passes from water to air. In this case, the light can reach the observer by two different paths, so the fish seems to be in two different places. This bending of light is called refraction and is responsible for many optical phenomena. (b) This image shows refraction of light from a fish near the top of a fish tank.

Figure 1.13 shows how a ray of light changes direction when it passes from one medium to another. As before, the angles are measured relative to a perpendicular to the surface at the point where the light ray crosses it. (Some of the incident light is reflected from the surface, but for now we concentrate on the light that is transmitted.) The change in direction of the light ray depends on the relative values of the indices of refraction (The Propagation of Light) of the two media involved. In the situations shown, medium 2 has a greater index of refraction than medium 1. Note that as shown in Figure 1.13(a), the direction of the ray moves closer to the perpendicular when it progresses from a medium with a lower index of refraction to one with a higher index of refraction. Conversely, as shown in Figure 1.13(b), the direction of the ray moves away from the perpendicular when it progresses from a medium with a higher index of refraction to one with a lower index of refraction. The path is exactly reversible.

Figure 1.13 The change in direction of a light ray depends on how the index of refraction changes when it crosses from one medium to another. In the situations shown here, the index of refraction is greater in medium 2 than in medium 1. (a) A ray of light moves closer to the perpendicular when entering a medium with a higher index of refraction. (b) A ray of light moves away from the perpendicular when entering a medium with a lower index of refraction.

The amount that a light ray changes its direction depends both on the incident angle and the amount that the speed changes. For a ray at a given incident angle, a large change in speed causes a large change in direction and thus a large change in angle. The exact mathematical relationship is the law of refraction, or Snell’s law, after the Dutch mathematician Willebrord Snell (1591–1626), who discovered it in 1621. While the law has been named after Snell, the Arabian physicist Ibn Sahl found the law of refraction in 984 and used it in his work On Burning Mirrors and Lenses. The law of refraction is stated in equation form as

Here $n_1$ and $n_2$ are the indices of refraction for media 1 and 2, and ${\theta }_1$ and ${\theta }_2$ are the angles between the rays and the perpendicular in media 1 and 2. The incoming ray is called the incident ray, the outgoing ray is called the refracted ray, and the associated angles are the incident angle and the refracted angle, respectively.

Snell’s experiments showed that the law of refraction is obeyed and that a characteristic index of refraction n could be assigned to a given medium and its value measured. Snell was not aware that the speed of light varied in different media, a key fact used when we derive the law of refraction theoretically using Huygens’s principle in Huygens’s Principle.