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5/25/08
A. P. Physics
Experiment 2: Prism
Procedural Questions:
3a) What colors are seen and in what order are they?
(In Order) Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red; Technically, all
the colors in the visible spectrum, beginning with Violet and ending with Red.
3c) According to Snell’s Law and the information given about the frequency dependence
of the index of refraction for Acrylic, which color is predicted to refract at the largest
angle?
Violet
4) Do the colored rays emerge from the rhombus parallel to each other? Why or why not?
No. The waves that we see as colored light each have different frequencies, and
therefore different indexes of refraction in the acrylic material; this causes all three waves
to refract at different angles from each other as they collide with the prism’s walls. They
therefore exit also at separate angles, and thus are not parallel, by definition.
Questions – Part I:
1) What is the relationship between the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection?
They are exactly the same.
2) Are the three colored rays reversed left-to-right by the plane mirror?
Yes, like so:
Questions – Part II:
1) What is the relationship between the focal length of a cylindrical mirror and its radius
of curvature? Do your results confirm your answer?
F = ½ R; Yes, as 2 9/16 inches = (1/2)(5 1/8 inches)
Question: What is the angle of the ray that leaves the rhombus relative to the ray that
enters the rhombus?
0°; the rays are parallel.
Procedural Data:
- Measured Critical Angle: 43°
- Theoretical Critical Angle: 41.81°
- Percent Difference Between Critical Angle: 7%
Questions:
1) How does the brightness of the internally reflected ray change when the incident angle
changes from less than θc to greater than θc?
The brightness increases as the angle passes the critical threshold.
2) Is the critical angle greater for red light or violet light? What does this tell you about
the index of refraction?
The critical angle is greater for red light. This means that red light must have a
greater index of refraction than violet light in acrylic, as θc and n are directly
proportional.
Experiment 6: Refraction – Convex and Concave Lenses
Procedural Questions:
6) No; one is 5 ¼ inches and the other is 6 inches
7) All the rays seem to focus at the same point. The two lens system focuses the rays
closer to the source than they would have focused with only the single lens. This is to be
expected; each lens bends rays to a sharper and sharper angle, decreasing the distance
until they finally converge.
Table 9.1
Object Distance Image Distance Image Size (Magnification) 1/do 1/di
1 12.6 cm 87.4 cm -7x 0.079 0.011
2 88.8 cm 11.2 cm -0.13x 0.011 0.089
3 16 cm 32 cm 0.065 0.031
4
5
32.9 cm
14.2 cm
15.1 cm
45.8 cm
NO DATA 0.030
0.070
0.066
0.022
6
7
47.1 cm
57.5 cm
12.9 cm
12.5 cm
TO 0.021
0.017
0.078
0.080
8
9
13.6 cm
13.3 cm
56.4 cm
67.7 cm
RECORD 0.074
0.075
0.018
0.015
10
11
68.2 cm
78.5 cm
11.8 cm
11.5 cm HERE 0.015
0.013
0.085
0.087
12 13 cm 77 cm 0.077 0.013
Procedural Data:
- Focal Length (Solved using limits): 10 cm
- X-intercept: 0.089
- Y-intercept: 0.101
- F Average: 10.57 cm
- Percent Difference: 5.7%
Questions:
1) Is the image formed by the lens erect or inverted?
The image is always inverted.
3) Explain why, for a given screen-object distance, there are two positions where the
image is in focus.
The image focuses whenever 1/di + 1/do equals a specific number (1/f); this can
happen twice for a given screen-object distance because there will be two points at which
the lens can be placed where such a ratio is achieved: once where di is greater and once
where do is greater. The concept here is like that of the fact that you can be one unit away
from zero on a number line twice: once in the positive direction, and once in the negative
direction.