Ray Diagrams (1 Viewer)

[sunjet]

Im so lost on these..

 

[Rahul]

the what diagrams?

 

[Dash]

Are you talking about the diffraction refraction stuff in the prelim course?

 

[freaking_out]

i think they're diagrams, which shows the path of a light ray as it gets reflected by different mirrors. :S

 

[sunjet]

yea i dont think its in syballus though, i was having soem trouble with them, but our teacher is just stupid. yes prelim course, it finds the nature of the image from reflection

 

[Constip8edSkunk]

all u need 2 know for the course is that the angle of incidence and reflection r equal i think and concave/convex mirrors arent in it

 

[Halo]

The ray diagram is a tool to help you visualise the path of a ray (eg. light). The convention is to draw lines perpendicular to the ray's direction of travel, where the lines are spaced according to the ray's wavelength. A line with an arrow indicates the direction of travel.

It can help you see what happens when a ray passes through a transparent prism (or indeed, other stuff): eg. the part of the ray that reaches the prism's surface first will be refracted first, so by using the ray diagram you could see the gradual change in the entirety of the ray's direction of travel.