Law of reflection Definition and 3 Discussions

Specular reflection, or regular reflection, is the mirror-like reflection of waves, such as light, from a surface.The law of reflection states that a reflected ray of light emerges from the reflecting surface at the same angle to the surface normal as the incident ray, but on the opposing side of the surface normal in the plane formed by the incident and reflected rays. This behavior was first described by Hero of Alexandria (AD c. 10–70).Specular reflection may be contrasted with diffuse reflection, in which light is scattered away from the surface in a range of directions.

View More On Wikipedia.org
Recent contents
  1. R

    Deriving the Law of Reflection from Huygens Principle

    Attached is section 33.7 from my book, which introduces Huygen's principle in order to derive the law of reflection. I am more used to the ray model rather than the wave model, so I'm constantly going to try to relate everything back to rays. Making this connection also helps with completeness...
    • rtareen
    • Thread
    • law of reflection optics
    • Replies: 5
    • Forum: Optics
  2. Z

    Snell's law and law of reflection derivation -- confusing

    I am learning principle of optics written by Born&Wolf and confused with the method to derive Snell's laws and law of reflection. In the textbook,##v_1## is the speed of light in mediator 1 and ##v_2## is the one in mediator 2. ##{\vec s}## is the direction of light and ##{\vec r}## is the...
  3. KaseyKC

    Deriving the law of reflection

    I'm trying to derive the law of reflection for Electromagnetic Waves and Optics. I'm using some lecture notes that my university provided. I'm confused as to why the two sine functions are changed to cosine functions as you don't do the same when you are deriving Snell's law. Refer to attached...
Top