Light rays – refraction, total internal reflection and prisms
Integrated ScienceLight & SoundAges 14–15
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Sign in to playThree screens: Intro lets you drag a laser across the boundary between two media (including mystery media whose refractive index you must work out from your own measurements), read the angle of refraction with a protractor and find the condition for total internal reflection; Prisms lets you drag prisms and the laser to see white light split into a spectrum through repeated refraction and internal reflection; Tools adds a light-intensity probe, a wave view and an adjustable laser wavelength. Based on the "Bending Light" simulation by PhET Interactive Simulations, University of Colorado Boulder (CC BY 4.0); rewritten.
Lesson: Refraction of light; Total internal reflection; Prisms
How to use
Parameters you can change
- Starting screen Intro, Prisms, Tools
- Incident medium (top) — Intro/Tools screens Air, Water, Glass, Mystery A, Mystery B
- Refracting medium (bottom) — Intro/Tools screens Air, Water, Glass, Mystery A, Mystery B
- Angle of incidence i 0–89 °
- Show protractor
- Laser wavelength (Prisms screen with white light off, and Tools screen) 400–700 nm
- Prism shape Triangle, Semicircle, Trapezium
- White light through the prism (off = single wavelength)
- Tools screen: ray or wave view Ray, Wave
