Calculating Wavelength of Red Light in Liquid

[rhxoehwhfh]

Red light travels from air into liquid at an angle of incidence of 390 and an angle of reflection of 170. Calculate the wavelength of the red light in the liquid if its wavelength in air is 750 nm.

can anyone give me a clue? ,,, please..

 

[DaveC426913]

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Wouldn't a change in wavelength mean a change in colour?

 

[Dick]

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Wouldn't a change in wavelength mean a change in colour?

Snell's law, Snell's law. Deduce an index of refraction from change in angle. Though, got to admit, 390 is sort of a strange angle. Once you've done that, wavelength in a medium is related to index of refraction.

 

[bsimmo]

It would change colour if it moved outside that colour range... though 750nm should really be classed as infra-red.
You should know you answer is in the right range when it fall in the red spectrum ;) If you get 400nm you're going wrong somewhere ;)

I think the angles are suppose to be 39° and 17°

 

[Doc Al]

Wouldn't a change in wavelength mean a change in colour?

Why would the color change? The frequency doesn't.

 

[Shooting Star]

First line from "Color vision" in Wikipedia:

Color vision is the capacity of an organism or machine to distinguish objects based on the wavelengths (or frequencies) of the light they reflect or emit.

Very misleading, I must say.

 

[bsimmo]

Shooting star, to be fair since the light has to travel through the 'eye bits' to get to the photoreceptors the wavelength will be shifting around as it goes through the different mediums (speed of light will change). Though from my understanding the photoreceptors responds to the length and not the rate it is hit at before it start to figure out what is what.
But this takes it off topic (though it never was 'red' light).
But for interpretation from a wavelength to a colour scale it gets messy :D

 

[Shooting Star]

The answer to the problem by the OP lies in the fact that the frequency f will not change, but the wavelength will. This is what we have to assume to solve the problem.

There seems to be a general consensus (the impression I got from the net) that it is the frequency that the eye perceives as the colour, and not the wavelength. Has this been thoroughly explored experimentally in different situations and different media? You are saying the photo receptors respond to wave length. Are you sure about this? But your next part, about the number of hits, is not very relevant because frequency of light does not have anything to do with number of hits. It has more to do with the energies of the photons, which remain constant.

Some more reading up on how the eye works seems imperative.

 

[bsimmo]

frequency is cycles per second... number of hits of that wavelength in a second 'rate it is hit at'

Has this been thoroughly explored experimentally in different situations and different media?
No idea, but I would have thought it may be hard to determine. The media in front of the receptors would be the same for the person interpreting it. So the frequency and wavelength would always have the same relationship. Somebody with a greater understanding about the receptors may know. Hence why I used from my understanding. :) Of course that depends on the amplitude. It may just see it as greyscale.

Some more reading up on how the eye works seems imperative.
So very true, but not something I wanted to get into in an Advanced Physics homework topic.


EDIT to add
I also feel we would need to jump out of frequency & wavelength and into photon energies...

 

[bsimmo]

Had a quick think and a look and this may shed more light on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinal and related references.

 

[Shooting Star]

frequency is cycles per second... number of hits of that wavelength in a second 'rate it is hit at'

Oh, I thought you were referring to number of hits by photons.