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Which of these is untrue about ray diagrams?

A. The arrowheads show the direction of the light

B. Lines must always be straight

C. More arrowheads on lines mean a brighter light

User JColeson
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1 Answer

4 votes

Answer:

The untrue option is C: "More arrowheads on lines mean a brighter light"

Step-by-step explanation:

Ray diagrams are used to show how the light behaves with things like mirrors or lenses. Where we only study how the direction of the light changes when it interacts with these objects.

The "light" is represented with arrows, where again, the only thing we care is the direction of the light, so the first statement is true, the arrowheads show the direction of the light, and only that.

The intensity of the light, in this context, has no effect on how light behaves, so there is not a necessity of representing the intensity of the light, thus, more arrowheads on lines do not mean a brighter light. It may only be used to represent changes in direction of the light.

Finally, we know that light travels in straight pats (the pats can be curved in some cases, like with large gravitational fields, but this is not the case of a ray diagram) so the lines that represent the light should always be straight, thus option B is also true.

The untrue option is C: "More arrowheads on lines mean a brighter light"

User Xuanyue
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