When a ray of light travels perpendicular to the surface of separation of two medium it goes?

As an electromagnetic wave, light travels in straight lines along narrow beams of light, which are referred to as rays. Despite the fact that reflection or refraction can alter its direction, rays of light always moves in a straight line.

Read on to learn more about its types and properties.

Rays of Light

The path that light energy takes is called a ray of light. A ray is typically portrayed in diagrams as a straight line and has a finite width in reality. A ray of light is the direction that light energy moves through a medium. It is represented by a line that is straight and has an arrow on it.

A light ray is a simplified representation of light that is depicted as a straight line in physics (and optics). It is more accurate to think of light as a wave with peaks and valleys. But if you draw a line that is perpendicular to those peaks and valleys by 90 degrees, you obtain a ray going in the direction the energy is moving. We can clearly depict the mobility of light, including reflection and refraction, using light beams. Ray tracing is the term for this. For simulating things like reflection, refraction, and shadows, ray tracing is helpful. But understanding some phenomena, like diffraction and interference, requires considering light as a wave.

Types of Light Rays

Parallel Rays

As may be seen in the diagram above, it is a bundle of parallel light beams. The beam’s diameter remains constant throughout.

In reality, you won’t find a light source or a lighted structure that emits a perfectly parallel beam of light. The ideal source of a completely parallel beam of light is a big, uniform planar source of light. When the source of light is very far away from the area being observed, such as the sun, the resulting beam is also virtually parallel.

Convergent Rays

It is the type of light beam where the rays converge at a single point and the diameter of the beam continues to shrink in the rays’ direction. A convergent lens changes a parallel beam of light into a convergent beam. A true light source does not immediately emit a converging beam.

Divergent Rays

It is a beam of light in which all the rays converge at a single point. Such a beam’s diameter keeps growing as the rays travel forward. The majority of physical light sources emit divergent beams of light. The most pertinent illustration of a diverging beam is the light rays emanating from a point source.

Properties of Rays of Light

Reflection of Light

When light rays move from one medium to another or are reflected off a surface, they change direction. According to the law of reflection, a light ray’s angle of incidence and angle of reflection are both identical when it reflects off an even surface.

Refraction of Light

Because some light is reflected and some light is transmitted into the second transparent material, a light ray changes direction when it passes from one transparent medium to another. It is known as the refraction of light to characterise this occurrence. The law of refraction, also known as Snell’s law, states that the ratio of the sine of the angles of incidence and of refraction is equal to the ratio of the indices of refraction of the first and second media.

Dispersion of Light

Dispersion is the term used to describe the breaking of visible light into its individual colours. The alteration of the light ray’s speed, which creates a different angle of departure for each wavelength, is what causes the dispersion of light.

Frequency and wavelength are known to be inversely related to one another. When light strikes a surface, it disperses into a variety of colours depending on the wavelength or frequency of the incident light. Since each colour has a unique wavelength and frequency, we see various hues even when white light is present.

Diffraction of Light

The spreading of waves as they go through or around an obstruction is referred to as diffraction. Diffraction of light, as it is used to describe light, occurs more explicitly when a light wave passes by a corner or via an opening or slit that is physically smaller than the wavelength of that light, if not even smaller.

Polarization of Light

According to science, the polarization of light is a phenomenon brought on by electromagnetic radiation’s wave-like nature. Since sunlight travels through the vacuum to reach the Earth, it serves as an illustration of an electromagnetic wave. These waves are referred to as electromagnetic waves because an electric field interacts with a magnetic field.

The most typical physical processes that result from the deviation of photon beams include absorption with refraction, diffraction, and refractive polarisation. In addition, the mechanism that carries out the fundamentals of an extract of polarisation also involves the double refraction of photolytic waves.

Interference of Light

In physics, interference of light is described as the superposition of waves that alters the amplitude of the resulting wave. Most people see some form of optical interference every day, but many are unaware of the physics behind it. The light reflected from an oil film floating on water is one of the clearest examples of how light can interfere with itself.

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Rays of Light FAQs

Ans.1 A light beam travels through an equilateral glass prism such that the inside of the prism’s refracted ray is parallel to its base.

Ans.2 When light enters a medium with a different speed or transitions from a fast to a slow medium, refraction occurs.

Ans.3 The ray will refract in the normal direction.

Ans.4 They travel in the same way if they travel in the air. However, when the medium is changed, for instance, if rays travel from air to water, refraction occurs.

Ans.5 Since the angles of incidence and reflection are always equal, the angle of reflection should be 0° because the normal to the plane incidence angle is 0°.