Recent content by Stacey Freels

Isn't the ray changing direction? And why would an angle of 45° result in the ray not changing direction? Also, I'm having a bit of trouble connecting what you are saying to the problem itself. Could you please clarify? Thank you!

But anyway, it could be the diagram is not perfect. So, if we assume that the angle is 39 degrees, ray A would have a shorter wavelength than ray B, correct?

Because in the diagram it appears to be ~45 degrees

Just want to make sure that this scenario is actually impossible. If the wavelengths were out of the visible spectrum (say 1000nm and 200nm), the index of refraction for these wavelengths would differ even more and there could be wavelengths where ray A internally reflects and ray B refracts. In...

What if we took the rays out of the visible light spectrum? Does light at these wavelengths behave how visible light does when it hits a prism?

If we use the refractive indices for red light and purple light, for example, we get 1.54 for red light and 1.59 for purple light (given in our textbook). In the diagram we see that one ray (ray A) is internally reflecting, while ray B is still refracting. By the diagram, it appears that the two...

True. How can we relate wavelength and indices of refraction?

Homework Statement The two rays shown below, a and b, have different wavelengths. They travel through the glass prism as shown; 1) is this possible? 2) If this is possible, which has the longer wavelength, ray a or ray b? [see attached figure] Homework Equations λ = λi/n critical angle =...