Physics Ch. 13: Refraction of Light
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13 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 refraction | the way in which light bends when it passes from one medium to another |
| refractive index (n) | the ratio of sine i to sine r when the light travels from a vacuum to that medium |
| total internal reflection | the optical phenomenon where light is reflected back from a boundary between two media; it occurs when the light traveling towards the rarer medium from the denser one, striking the boundary with an angle of incidence greater than the critical angle for those two media |
| critical angle | the angle of incidence in the denser medium which causes and angle of refraction of 90° |
| optic center | the center point of a lens |
| principal axis | the straight line passing through the optic center that enters the lens at right angles to face the lens |
| focus | the point through which light traveling parallel tot he principal axis converges to for a convex lens or appears to diverge from for a concave lens |
| focal length | distance from the focus to the optic center |
| power of a lens | inverse of the focal length |
| compound lenses | combination of two or more lenses in contact with each other |
| accommodation | the process of adjusting the focal length of the lens to focus distant or near objects clearly on the retina |
| short-sightedness (myopia) | distant objects cannot be seen clearly |
| long-sightedness (hyperopia) | near objects cannot be seen clearly |
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