CLASS 10 PHYSICS

Chapter 11- Human Eye and Colourful World

The Human Eye: It is a natural optical instrument which is used to see the objects by human
beings. It is like a camera which has a lens and screen system.

Structure of the Human Eye

The various parts of eye and their functions :

 Retina: It is a light sensitive screen inside the eye on which image is formed. It contains
rods and cones.
 Cornea: It is a thin membrane which covers the eye trail. It acts like a lens which refracts
the light entering the eye.
 Aqueous humour: It is fluid which fills the space between cornea and eye lens.
 Eye lens: It is a convex lens made of transparent and flexible jelly like material. Its
curvature can be adjusted with the help of ciliary muscles.
 Pupil: It is a hole in the middle of iris through which light enters the eye. It appears black
because light falling on it goes into the eye and does not come back.
 Ciliary muscles: These are the muscles which are attached to eye lens and can modify the
shape of eye lens which leads to the variation in focal lengths.
 Iris: It controls the amount of light entering the eye by changing the size of the pupil.
 Optical nerve: These are the nerves which take the image to the brain in the form of
electrical signals.

The human eye is roughly spherical in shape with a diameter of about 2.3 cm. It consists of a
convex lens made up of living tissues. Hence, human lenses are living organs contrary to the
simple optical lenses. The following table lists the main parts of the human eye and their
respective functions.
S.No. Human Eye Part Functions

Opens and closes in order to regulate and control the amount

1. Pupil
of light.

2. Iris Controls light level similar to the aperture of a camera.

3. Sclera Protects the outer coat.

A thin membrane which provides 67% of the eye’s focusing

4. Cornea
power.

5. Crystalline lens Helps to focus light into the retina.

6. Conjunctive Covers the outer surface (visible part) of the eye.

7. Aqueous humour Provides power to the cornea.

8. Vitreous humour Provides the eye with its form and shape.

Captures the light rays focused by the lens and sends

9. Retina
impulses to the brain via the optic nerve.

10. Optic nerve Transmits electrical signals to the brain.

11. Ciliary muscles Contracts and extends in order to change the lens shape for
 focusing.

Defects of Vision and their Correction

1. Myopia (Short-sightedness): It is a kind of defect in the human eye due to which a person
can see near objects clearly but he cannot see the distant objects clearly. Myopia is due to
(i) excessive curvature of the cornea.
(ii) elongation of eyeball.

Correction: Since a concave lens has an ability to diverge incoming rays, it is used to correct
this defect of vision. The image is allowed to format the retina by using a concave lens of
suitable power as shown in the given figure.

2. Hypermetropia (Long-sightedness): It is a kind of defect in the human eye due to which, a

person can see distant objects properly but cannot see the nearby objects clearly. It happens due
to
(i) decrease in the power of eye lens i.e., increase in focal length of eye lens.
(ii) shortening of eyeball.

A hypermetropic eye has its least distance of distinct vision greater than 25 cm.
Correction: Since a convex lens has the ability to converge incoming rays, it can be used to
correct this defect of vision. The ray diagram for the corrective measure for a hypermetropic eye
is shown in the given figure.

3. Presbyopia: It is a kind of defect in human eye which occurs due to ageing. It happens due to
the following reasons
(i) decrease in flexibility of eye lens.
(ii) gradual weakening of ciliary muscles.
In this, a person may suffer from both myopia and hypermetropia.

Correction: By using a bifocal lens with appropriate power. Bifocal lenses consist of both
concave and convex lens, upper position consists of the concave lens and lower portion consists
of a convex lens.

4. Astigmatism: It is a kind of defect in human eye due to which a person cannot see (focus)
simultaneously horizontal and vertical lines both.

Correction: By using a cylindrical lens.

5. Cataract: Due to the membrane growth over eye lens, the eye lens becomes hazy or even
opaque. This leads to a decrease or loss of vision. This problem is called a cataract. It can be
corrected only by surgery.

Refraction of light through a prism: When a ray of light is incident on a rectangular glass slab,
after refracting through the slab, it gets displaced laterally. As a result, the emergent ray comes
out parallel to the incident ray.
Unlike a rectangular slab, the side of a glass prism are inclined at an angle called the angle of
prism.

Prism: A prism has two triangular bases and three rectangular surfaces.

Angle of Prism: Angle between two lateral faces is called angle of the prism.

Angle of Deviation: The angle between the incident ray produced and the emergent ray.

Dispersion of white light by a glass prism: The phenomenon of splitting of white light into its
seven constituent colours when it passes through a glass prism is called dispersion of white light.
The various colours seen are Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red. The
sequence of colours remembers as VIBGYOR. The band of seven colours is called the spectrum.
The different component colour of light bends at a different angle with respect to the incident
angle. The violet light bends the least while the red bends most.

Composition of white light: White light consists of seven colours i.e., violet, indigo, blue,
green, yellow, orange and red.

Monochromatic light: Light consisting of single colour or wavelength is called monochromatic

light, example; sodium light.

Polychromatic light: Light consisting of more than two colours or wavelengths is called

polychromatic light, example; white light.

Recombination of white light: Newton found that when an inverted prism is placed in the path
of dispersed light then after passing through the prism, they recombine to form white light.

Issac Newton: He was the first, who obtained spectrum of sunlight by using glass prism. He
tried to split the spectrum of white light more by using another similar prism, but he could not
get any more colours.
He repeated the experiment using second prism in inverted position with respect to the first
prism. It allowed all the colours of spectrum to pass through second prism. He found white light
emerges on the other side of second prism.
He concluded that Sun is made up of seven visible colour VIBGYOR.

Rainbow: It is the spectrum of sunlight in nature. It is formed due to the dispersion of sunlight
by the tiny water droplet, present in the atmosphere.

Formation of the rainbow: The water droplets act like small prism. They refract and disperse
the incident sunlight, then reflect it internally, and finally refract it again when it comes out of
the raindrop. Due to the dispersion of light and internal reflection, different colours reach the
observer’s eye.
Red colour appears on top and violet at the bottom of rainbow.
A rainbow is always formed in a direction opposite to that of Sun.
At ‘A’ – Refraction and dispersion take place.
At ‘B’ – Internal reflection takes place. At ‘C’ – Refraction and dispersion take place.

Atmospheric Refraction: The refraction of light caused by the Earth’s atmosphere (having air
layers of varying optical densities) is called Atmospheric Refraction.

Appearance of Star Position: It is due to atmospheric refraction of star light.

The temperature and density of different layer of atmosphere keeps varying. Hence, we have
different medium.

Distant star act as point source of light. When the starlight enter the Earth’s atmosphere, it
undergoes refraction continuously, due to changing refractive index i.e. from Rarer to denser. It
bends towards the normal.
Due to this, the apparent position of the star is different from actual position. The star appear
higher than its actual position.

Twinkling of Star: It is also due to atmospheric refraction.

Distant star act like a point source of light. As the beam of starlight keeps deviating from its path,
the apparent position of star keeps on changing because physical condition of earth’s atmosphere
is not stationary.
Hence, the amount of light enters our eyes fluctuate sometimes bright and sometime dim. This is
the “Twinkling effect of star”.

Why planets do not twinkle ?

Planets are closer to earth and are seen as extended source of light i.e. the collection of large
number of point sized sources of light. Therefore the total amount of light entering our eyes from
all individual point source will nullify the twinkling effect.

Why, the duration of day becomes approximately 4 minutes shorter if there is no atmosphere on
earth: Actual sun rise happens when it is below the horizon in the morning. The rays of light
from the sun below the horizon reach our eyes because of refraction of light. Similarly, the sun
can be seen about few minutes after the actual sun set. Thus the duration of, day time will
increase by 4 minutes.
This is due to atmospheric refraction. Because of this sun is visible about 2 minutes earlier than
actual sunrise and about 2 minutes after the actual sun set.
Apparent flattering of the Sun’s disc at sunset and sunrise is due to atmospheric refraction.

1
Scattering of light: According to Rayleigh’ Law of Scattering, the amount of scattered light ∝   
λ
(λ = wavelength)
Scattering of light decreases with increase in wavelength.
Tyndall Effect: When a beam of light strikes, the minute particle of earth’s atmosphere,
suspended particles of dust and molecule of air the path of beam become visible. The
phenomenon of scattering of light by the colloidal particle gives rise to Tyndall Effect.
It can be observed when sunlight passes through a canopy of a dense forest.
The colour of the scattered light depends on the size of the scattering particles.

Colour of Sunrise and Sunset: While sunset and sunrise, the colour of the sun and its
surroundihg appear red. During sunset and sunrise, the sun is near to horizon, and therefore, the
sunlight has to travel larger distance in atmosphere. Due to this, most of the blue light (shorter
wavelength) is scattered away by the particles. The light of longer wavelength (red colour)
reaches our eye. This is why sun appear red in colour.

Why the danger signal or sign is made of red colour?

Red colour scatteres the most when strikes the small particle of fog and smoke because it has the
maximum wavelength (visible spectrum). Hence, from large distance also, we can see the red
colour clearly.

At noon sun appears white: At noon, the sun is overhead and sunlight would travel shorter
distance relatively through the atmosphere. Hence, at noon, the sun appear white as only little of
the blue and violet
colours are scattered.