This week, our job was to create an original image depicting what we have learned in class about Light Optics. Since I was interested in air to water refraction, I used a figurine to partially submerge in a glass of water. As you can see, the portion of the cat that is underwater looks larger than normal. It also seems displaced. How is this possible? Well, in this picture, light is moving from air to glass to water to glass and then back to air. Because air, glass, and water are different substances, the incident of refraction or the speed in which light moves through these different materials are different as well. For air, the incident of refraction (n) is 1 while n for glass is 1.52 and n for water is 1.33 so when light passes from the air to glass to water it travels at different speeds. This is why the cat appears to look larger and displaced underwater. In order to determine how much the light refracted (the angle of refraction) we use the Snell's Law which states:
This image shows the angle of refraction from air to water
This is another image explaining refraction of light as it moves from air to water
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