Question

A horizontal ray of light with a significant uv component is incident 1.00 cm from the tip of a flint glass prism in the shape of an equilateral triangle. The prism sits on a horizontal surface. The faces of the prism are 20.0 cm in length. The index of refraction of the glass is n = 1.50 for red light (700 nm) and n = 1.70 for blue light (400 nm). What is the angular spread of the rays of visible light? In other words, if the red light emerged from the prism at θr and the blue light at θb, then what is the value of Δθ = θb - θr?

Answer 1

To find the angular spread of the rays of visible light, we can use Snell's Law to calculate the incident and refracted angles for red and blue light. By subtracting the incident angles, we can determine the angular spread.

Step-by-step explanation:

The angular spread of the rays of visible light can be determined using Snell's Law, which relates the incident angle and the refracted angle to the indices of refraction of the media involved. Given that the prism is made of flint glass with different indices of refraction for red and blue light, we can calculate the refracted angles for each color and subtract them to find the angular spread.

First, we need to calculate the incident angle for blue light. We can use Snell's Law and the known incident angle and index of refraction for red light to find the angle of refraction for red light. Then, we can use this angle of refraction for red light and the index of refraction for blue light to find the incident angle for blue light.

Once we have both incident angles, we can subtract them to find the angular spread of the rays of visible light.