A thin beam of light enters a thick plastic sheet from air at an angle of 32.0° with the normal and continues in the sheet at an angle of 23.0° with the normal. What is the index of refraction of the plastic? The index of refraction of the air, nair = 1.

Question

A thin beam of light enters a thick plastic sheet from air at an angle of 32.0° with the normal and continues in the sheet at an angle of 23.0° with the normal.  What is the index of refraction of the plastic? The index of refraction of the air, nair = 1.

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

We start by identifying the setup and applying Snell's law at the air–plastic interface. Snell's law relates the indices of refraction and the angles of the incident and refracted rays: n1 sin(theta1) = n2 sin(theta2).

Given: n1 (air) = 1.0, theta1 = 32.0° (angle with the normal in air), theta2 = 23.0° (angle with the normal inside the plastic).

Solve for n2 (the plastic's index of refraction): n2 = n1 * sin(theta1) / sin(theta2).

Compute the sines: sin(32.0°) ≈ 0.5299, sin(23.0°) ≈ 0.3907.

Plug in the values: n2 ≈ 1.0 * 0.5299 / 0.3907 ≈ 1.357.

Rounding to three significant figures gives n2 ≈ 1.36.

Notes:
- The calculation assumes the light indeed refracts into the plastic, so the refracted angle is smaller than the incident angle, consistent with a medium of higher index than air.
- If answer options were provided, you would compare this computed value to the closest choice; since options aren’t listed here, the numerical result is the key outcome.
- The method relies on the standard form of Snell's law and uses the given air index nair = 1 as the reference medium.

A thin beam of light enters a thick plastic sheet from air at an angle of 32.0° with the normal and continues in the sheet at an angle of 23.0° with the normal. What is the index of refraction of the plastic? The index of refraction of the air, nair = 1. 单项选择题

类似问题

A light ray passes from water (refractive index ( n1 = 1.33 )) into diamond (refractive index ( n2 = 2.42 )). If the angle of incidence in water is ( 300 ), what is the angle of refraction in diamond?

A beam of light, traveling in air, strikes a plate of transparent material at an angle of incidence of 56.0°. It is observed that the reflected and refracted beams form an angle of 90.0°. What is the index of refraction of this material?

The angle of incidence

A ray of light, which is traveling in air, is incident on a glass plate at a 45° angle. The angle of refraction in the glass

Light exits a diamond (n = 2.42) into air. The angle of incidence is 15.0°. What is the angle of refraction?

Question at position 1 Given the figure below where light travels from one medium to another, and with Snell's Law in mind as well as the difference between the angles apparent; what is the relationship between the refractive indices n_1 and n_2? n_1 > n_2n_1 < n_2n_1 = n_2Not enough information

A light ray passes from water (refractive index ( n1 = 1.33 )) into diamond (refractive index ( n2 = 2.42 )). If the angle of incidence in water is ( 300 ), what is the angle of refraction in diamond?

更多留学生实用工具

智能学习助手

风格化写作助手

论文查重助手

文献引用助手

课堂转译助手

课堂笔记助手

Quiz搜索助手

学校历年真题

智能刷题助手

智能匹配练习

希望你的学习变得更简单