What Causes Refraction in Different Media?

[Sakha]

Hello, while making my tea and watching the spoon inside the glass (with water), I start questioning myself what really is refraction. On class they just told me refraction is because light goes slower in a medium, so it bends according to Snell's Law.
What is Snell's Law? Light bends to a certain angle when it goes change to a different refractive index medium, so it goes slower and therefore bends.
This is pretty much a 'chicken or the egg paradox' for me.

So why does light bends when it goes to a different refractive index. Why does the slower velocity cause it to bend?

Thanks, Sakha.

 

[cesiumfrog]

For any type of wave, even those at the surf at a beach, the wave will bend when it comes to a medium where it can propagate at a different speed. The name for this effect is refraction. The technical details are Snell's law. The reason is simple geometry, you easily look up a derivation of Snell's law if you want to understand better.

The reason light refracts in a medium is because light is a wave that goes slower in a medium. The reason it goes slower in a medium is a consequence of the details of how any polarizable medium interacts with a changing EM field..

 

[Sakha]

For any type of wave, even those at the surf at a beach, the wave will bend when it comes to a medium where it can propagate at a different speed. The name for this effect is refraction.

So I guess my question can be rephrased as "Why will waves bends when they get to a medium where they propagate slower?".

 

[DaveC426913]

So I guess my question can be rephrased as "Why will waves bends when they get to a medium where they propagate slower?".

Don't quote me on the following.

I do believe it is simple geometry, and is an inevitable consequence when you plot the movement of the wave point by point.

I believe a wavefront can be viewed as the sum total of constructive interference of a wave radiating out from every point on the line that is the wave's crest.

i.e. freeze an ocean wave in time. Treat every point on the line that is the crest of a wave as a point that emanates a new wave in a circular front moving out in all directions. The net results of all these infinite points radiating ends up cancelling everywhere except the leading edge of the wave moving forward.

So far, all you've got is a transverse wave moving straight.

Now, if you diagram this as it hits a new medium, the waves from every point as they encounter the boundary will propogate in slower, smaller circles. When you, as before, diagram these, then draw a line across the leading edges, the new line you draw (which is the new wavefront in the new medium) will be bent.

(Note: there's only one wave crest in the diagram, moving over time. The "new" wave is just the one wave having moved forward.)

 

[cesiumfrog]

Part of the concept is that frequency is constant but wavelength changes in proportion with speed. Think of cars going into a long tunnel. For concreteness, let's say the cars are going in at a rate of ten per minute and at a speed of 60kph, and let's say the cars are leaving at a speed of only 6kph (e.g., the different parts of the tunnel are in different speed zones). The cars still must be leaving at a rate of ten per minute. If they didn't leave at the same rate they entered, the total number of cars inside the tunnel would be changing, eventually there would be no more space to fit more cars in (or otherwise no more cars left to bring out). But the distance between the cars has changed. As they entered, the cars were each 100m apart. As they leave, there is only 10m from each car to the next. The cars are analogous to wave crests. For the same reasons, crests of a wave will bunch up when traveling to a medium where the speed of the wave is slower.

Part of the concept is that the wave always travels in the direction perpendicular to the wave crest (with successive crests parallel if they are in the same medium). This is to do with Huygen's principle, which Dave is illustrating.

And the rest is geometry. You can understand this by drawing an extended version of Dave's picture for yourself. If you fill the top half of a page with lots of parallel diagonal lines with 1cm separation, and want to fill the bottom of the page with lots of parallel diagonal lines with only 0.5cm separation, you'll see that the lines only match up in the middle if the lines at the bottom are at a different angle from the top. If you figure out the precise mathematics, you'll have Snell's law.

 

[Studiot]

So I guess my question can be rephrased as "Why will waves bends when they get to a medium where they propagate slower?".

1) Waves don't bend it's the wave train that does this. There is a big difference

2) Refraction also happens when change to a medium where they they propagate faster.

3) There's lots of good diagrams and explanation already in Physics Forums. I recommend a search.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=388128&highlight=snells+law

 

[Tac-Tics]

Snell's Law is empirical. You can experiment to find that it is true.

The slowing of light waves in different medium is harder to see. You can't measure it directly, because the speed of light is hard enough to measure already.

However, it's clear in slower moving mechanical waves that waves move at different speeds in different media. Sound moves faster through steel than through air. It is reasonable to assume light might be similar.

Check out Fermat's Principle (and the more modern version, the Principle of Least Action). This theory provides a very succinct description of which path(s) light will take to get to its destination, solely based on the time (or action) it takes to get there. In other words, the path depends on the velocity of light through the media involved.

 

[DaveC426913]

Snell's Law is empirical. You can experiment to find that it is true.

He wasn't questioning thatit was true; I think he simply wanted to "zoom in" to see how it actually happens at the nuts & bolts level in any wave medium.

 

[DaveC426913]

This is to do with Huygen's principle, which Dave is illustrating.

Huh. So it is. I guess that was a piece of knowledge I'd picked up in the distant past. I was sort of making that explanation up as I went along. Even my picture atched the Wiki example.

 

[HallsofIvy]

Here's a very classical explanation: Imagine an army unit or marching band, with, say, 10 people across, any number of rows deep. They march from an asphalt lot onto soft, rough, ground where they have to march slower to be sure not to fall. And they come onto it at an angle to their front row- people on the left reaching it first. As the people on the left end march onto the field, they will march slower than the person to their left, so fall back a little. That causes the line to "break" (form an angle) at that point. As every one in the line marches onto the soft ground and slows, they will be in line again, but at the new angle.

 

[Sakha]

However, it's clear in slower moving mechanical waves that waves move at different speeds in different media. Sound moves faster through steel than through air. It is reasonable to assume light might be similar.

It's getting a bit clearer for me, after reading about Fermat's, Huygens, and the derivation of Snell's Law.

A few more questions comes to mind:
Sound waves then should follow this same laws and have all the characteristics of waves, but why don't we feel the sound 'bending'?

As all this is about waves, a single photon will not experience this bending when it changes its medium of propagation right?

Thanks for all responses.

 

[Tac-Tics]

Sound waves then should follow this same laws and have all the characteristics of waves, but why don't we feel the sound 'bending'?

We don't necessarily have the sensitivity to overtly notice it when it happens, but it happens.

As all this is about waves, a single photon will not experience this bending when it changes its medium of propagation right?

A single photon will bend the same as a group of photons. It's a wave when it wants to be.

 

[Studiot]

Sound waves then should follow this same laws and have all the characteristics of waves, but why don't we feel the sound 'bending'?

Sound is indeed refracted.

This phenomenon is very important in (anti) submarine warfare where sound is used instead of vision.

 

[Sakha]

A single photon will bend the same as a group of photons. It's a wave when it wants to be.

Those indecisive annoying photons!

 

[DaveC426913]

A few more questions comes to mind:
Sound waves then should follow this same laws and have all the characteristics of waves, but why don't we feel the sound 'bending'?

What makes you think you don't?

Something to note though: it is uncommon to be in a circumstance where sound passes through media of differing refractive indices. Almost exclusively, our day-to-day experience of sounds is through air, which is, for the most part, of a uniform density. So, observing refractive sound will be challenging at best.

Now it does happen (sounds will refract when entering water, or steel, etc.) but the observation of it has to be in fairly contrived and controlled circumstances.

 

[Pythagorean]

(as the right wheel hits the grass, it slows down, but the other wheel is still going fast, resulting in rotation.

 

[Sakha]

(as the right wheel hits the grass, it slows down, but the other wheel is still going fast, resulting in rotation.

I really like this example, it's as if there was some kind of torque working there.
What is messing with me probably is my intuition of thinking of light as a straight ray instead of a wave.

 

[cesiumfrog]

Here's a very classical explanation: Imagine an army unit or marching band[..]

I like that example. Do you remember where it came from?

 

[DaveC426913]

I like that example. Do you remember where it came from?

Ubiquitous. It was what I was taught in school.

And that waren't jes yesterday...

 

[abhigyanguha]

light has a dual property, i.e, wave property and particle property. if we consider the wave property then light travels in a straight line as it is the shortest path and uses less energy. unelike any other substance or any form of energy in the universe, light also has the basic instinct, that is to save its energy and to have high energy levels like sphere. light travels through different speed in different media. the medium in which light travels faster is called a rarer medium. e.g, air. the medium in which light travels slower is called a denser medium. e.g, water. so, as light travels from a rarer medium to a denser medium, then the phenomena of refraction takes place. if we consider, the rarer medium to be air and denser be water, then a ray of light, traveling obliquely from air, enters water. in the boundary of separation of the two media, it bends.

 

[grzz]

I know that I am repeating the same type of example but this is the example that I used to show my students when we discussed refraction. I think that I found it in Feynman's Lectures.

Let us imagine two men carrying a pole between them. We are looking at them from above their heads.
First they are traveling on concrete where they can walk swiftly and then they enter an area where there is mud and hence they cannot walk as fast as before.
Please see the attachment for the diagram.

 

[DaveC426913]

I know that I am repeating the same type of example but this is the example that I used to show my students when we discussed refraction. I think that I found it in Feynman's Lectures.

Let us imagine two men carrying a pole between them. We are looking at them from above their heads.
First they are traveling on concrete where they can walk swiftly and then they enter an area where there is mud and hence they cannot walk as fast as before.
Please see the attachment for the diagram.

I don't open strange Word docs. Post the image directly.

 

[grzz]

I tried to post it directly but when I tried to copy and paste the 'paste' was not operetive. Can you help me regarding this?

 

[grzz]

let me try again.

 

[DaveC426913]

I tried to post it directly but when I tried to copy and paste the 'paste' was not operetive. Can you help me regarding this?

You don't paste directly. Use the advanced text editor, then either the image tag (little orange & green rectangle icon, lower row) or the attachment tag (paperclip, upper row).

 

[grzz]

here is the diagram ... I hope!

 

[DaveC426913]

here is the diagram ... I hope!

Yes, that's a good diagram.

The only thing remaining to explain is why a beam of light would act like a transverse rigid pole.

 

[grzz]

Of course, the path of the pole is only an analogy to the path of light. Using this example students immediately see that the bending is due to the change of speed in the two regions.

 

[zinq]

The only thing remaining to explain is why a beam of light would act like a transverse rigid pole.

Yes, that is the point that I have always seen glossed over in explanations of refraction:

A bunch of light is moving in one medium toward another medium whose surface is at an angle other than 90 degrees to the direction of motion. Why does the bunch of light behave as though it were a column of people moving, several abreast (i.e., like two wheels connected by an axle) ?

Does each photon behave individually like two wheels connected by an axle? Otherwise, why does the "wavefront" (I use this word informally) behave this way?

In other words, what keeps the light "connected to itself" along the direction transverse to the direction of motion?

 

[sophiecentaur]

Yes, that is the point that I have always seen glossed over in explanations of refraction:

A bunch of light is moving in one medium toward another medium whose surface is at an angle other than 90 degrees to the direction of motion. Why does the bunch of light behave as though it were a column of people moving, several abreast (i.e., like two wheels connected by an axle) ?

Does each photon behave individually like two wheels connected by an axle? Otherwise, why does the "wavefront" (I use this word informally) behave this way?

In other words, what keeps the light "connected to itself" along the direction transverse to the direction of motion?

Doesn't the Huygens construction provide a good reason? It is easy to be misled by other convincing but possibly flawed models, involving 'familiar', analogous phenomena. To get the nearest to 'understanding', I think you need to be as abstract as possible in your thinking and Huygens is the nearest thing to a Mathematical explanation. Some things just don't work without some Maths. Intuition is not always enough.

OH yes - and try to avoid trying to get photons involved in a wave explanation. They just don't work that way.

 

[Claude Bile]

When waves change velocity, it is necessary for the wave direction (the wave-vector) to change direction as they refract across a boundary; so as to preserve field continuity across the boundary.

Microscopically, refraction occurs because atoms act as driven oscillators that impart a phase shift on the incident wave - ultimately causing the (group velocity of the) wave to slow.

Claude.

 

[sophiecentaur]

When waves change velocity, it is necessary for the wave direction (the wave-vector) to change direction as they refract across a boundary; so as to preserve field continuity across the boundary.

Microscopically, refraction occurs because atoms act as driven oscillators that impart a phase shift on the incident wave - ultimately causing the (group velocity of the) wave to slow.

Claude.

Yes: atoms, molecules, ions and plain free electrons, all in different circumstances and for different frequencies of EM.
A good non-QM description is always best when possible, I always say.