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Alyce777
Aug8-07, 07:57 PM
1. The problem statement, all variables and given/known data
Instead of calculating apparent depth (for example, a penny in a glass of water appears to be closer to the surface than it actually is), instead of finding the angle of refraction and using snell's law, can I use the following:

Apparent Depth = Actual Depth x (n air / n water)
?

G01
Aug8-07, 09:25 PM
Yes, that relationship will work for this situation. It comes ultimately from applying Snell's Law and the small angle approximation to the given problem.