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alibert0914
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Homework Statement
This was for a lab experiment, and I'm still not sure how this all fits together. We were supposed to use snell's law to find the index of refraction for the lab bench. We measured from the top of the bench to our eye level, and to the center of the bright spot seen through a polaraizer. Height was 0.741 m, and distance was 0.605 m. We used the ref. index of air for n1.
Homework Equations
tan (theta): height/distance
n1sin(theta1) = n2sin(theta2)
thetaB = arctan n2/n1
The Attempt at a Solution
We calculated an angle to be 50.9 degrees. We assumed this to be thetaB, and plugged it in. However, since we were using n1=1 for air, it just seems like a lot of back and forth, and we basically get arctan (thetaB) = n2= 1.23. Most everyone else in the lab seems to have gotten n2 to be less than one. If someone could give us a nudge in the right direction that would be very helpful. Thanks a lot!