Light – Important points

• Light is a form of energy. It helps us to see the things around.

• Light travels from the source in a straight line (rectilinear
propagation).
• Light travels in all directions.
• Reflection of light: Reflection is when light bounces off an object. If
the surface is smooth and shiny, like glass, water or polished metal,
the light will reflect at the same angle as it hit the surface.
• Laws of reflection of light:

Incident Ray - The light ray that falls on the reflecting surface is called
an Incident Ray.
Reflected Ray –The light ray that gets reflected back from a reflecting
surface is called a Reflected Ray.
Normal - It is a line that is perpendicular to the reflected plane at the
point of incidence of Incident Ray.
 • Types of Reflection:

Mirrors

Plane mirror Spherical mirrors

(Virtual image)

Concave Mirror Convex mirror

There are two types of images formed:

1.Virtual – Image that cannot be formed on screen.
2.Real – Image formed on the screen
Plane Mirror: Any flat and polished surface that has almost no
irregularities on its surface that reflect light is called as a plane mirror.
Characteristics of image formed by plane mirror:
i)Image is virtual and cannot be projected on screen
ii)Image is erect.
iii)Image is of the same size as the object.
iv)Image is Laterally inverted
v)Distance of image and object from the plane mirror is same.
vi) Image formed in a plane mirror is behind the mirror.
Spherical Mirror- A mirror which is made from a part of a hollow
sphere.
Terminologies
Pole : The midpoint of the spherical mirror is called Pole. It is denoted by
the symbol P
Center of curvature: The center of the sphere of which the spherical
mirror is a part is called center of curvature and is denoted by symbol C.
Principal Axis- An imaginary line passing through the pole and
the centre of curvature of a spherical mirror is called principal axis.
Linear Aperture- The diameter of a spherical mirror is called linear
aperture.
Principal Focus-It is a point on the principal axis where a beam of light
parallel to the principal axis, after reflection either actually meets or
appear to meet. It is denoted by the letter F.
Focal length - The linear distance between the pole and the principal
focus is called focal length. It is denoted by the letter f.
Radius of curvature-The linear distance between the pole and centre of
curvature is called radius of curvature. It is denoted by the letter R.
Concave mirror - Converging mirror
Concave mirror- A mirror which is polished from the bulging side of a
hollow sphere, such that the reflecting side is towards its hollow side.

Concave mirror:
Depending on the distance of the object, concave mirror forms mainly two
kinds of images
i. Real and inverted
ii. Virtual and erect

Concave Mirror Ray Diagram

1. When an object is placed at infinity, a real image is formed at the focus.
The size of the image is much smaller than compared to that of the object.
2. When an object is placed behind the center of curvature, a real image is
formed between the center of curvature and focus. The size of the image is
smaller than compared to that of the object.

3. When an object is placed at the center of curvature and focus, the real
image is formed at the center of curvature. The size of the image is the same
as compared to that of the object.

4. When an object is placed in between the center of curvature and focus,

the real image is formed behind the center of curvature. The size of the
image is larger than compared to that of the object.
5. When an object is placed at the focus, the real image is formed
at infinity. The size of the image is much larger than compared to
that of the object.

6. When an object is placed in between focus and pole, a virtual and erect
image is formed. The size of the image is larger than compared to that of
the object.

Convex mirror – Diverging mirror

Convex mirror- A mirror which is polished from the hollow side of the
sphere, such that reflecting surface is towards its bulging side.
Convex mirror – Large field of viewing
Whatever be the distance of the object from a convex mirror, the image
formed by a convex mirror is always
• virtual
• erect and
• smaller than the object (or diminished).

'CONVEX Mirror' are used in shopping stores to watch activities of

customers. This is because convex mirror has large field of view.
Converging Mirror – Concave mirror
Diverging Mirror - Convex mirror
Both these mirrors can form Virtual Image
Converging Lens – Convex lens
Diverging Lens – Concave lens
Both these mirrors can form Virtual Image
Convex lens and Concave mirror - Real and Inverted / Virtual or erect
Convex mirror and Concave lens – Diverge rays
Concave mirror and Convex lens – Converge rays
Spherical Lens Spherical mirror

• Refraction of light
• We know about light and also know that light travels in a straight line path in
a medium or two different mediums with same density.
• Now a question arises what happens when light travels from one medium to
another with different densities for example from air to glass.
• When light ray is made to travel from one medium to another say from air to
glass medium then light rays bend at the boundary between the two mediums.
• So, the bending of light when it passes from one medium to another is
called Refraction of light.
 • The refraction of light takes place on going from one medium to another
because the speed of light is different in two media.
• Medium in which speed of light is more is called optically rarer medium and
medium in which speed of light is less is known as optically denser medium.
For example, glass is an optically denser medium than air and water.
NOTE:- When light goes from rarer medium to denser medium it bends
towards the normal and when it goes from denser medium to rarer medium
it bends away from the normal.

Refraction through a rectangular glass slab

To understand the refraction of light through a glass slab consider the
figure given below which shows the refraction of light through a
rectangular glass slab.
 Convex lens Concave lens

Concave lens diverges the light

Convex lens converges the falling on it.
light falling on it.

Convex lens is thicker in the Concave lens is thinner in the

middle. middle.
Terms related to lenses

Centres of curvature :
A lens has two spherical surfaces. Each of these surfaces forms a part of a sphere.
The centres of these spheres are called centres of curvature of the lens.

The centre of curvature of a lens is usually represented by the letter C. Since there
are two centres of curvature, we may represent them as C1 and C2.

Principal axis:
An imaginary straight line passing through the two centres of curvature of
a lens is called its principal axis.
Optical centre:
The central point of a lens is its optical centre.
It is usually represented by the letter O.
Aperture:
The effective diameter of the circular outline of a spherical lens is called
its aperture.
Focus:
When rays parallel to principal axis gets refracted by convex lens, they
converge to a point on principal axis, this point is called Principal focus.
A lens has two principal focus, usually named F1 and F2.
When rays parallel to principal axis gets refracted by concave lens, they
appear to diverge from a point on the principal axis, this point is called
Principal focus.
Concave lens also has two foci, usually named F1 and F2.

Image Formation in Lenses Using Ray Diagrams

Ray diagram helps us to study the nature, position and relative size of the
image formed by lenses.

For drawing ray diagrams, we first consider how light rays falling on both
concave and convex lens in three different ways get refracted.
Case for convex lens:

Image formation by spherical mirrors

Image formation by concave mirror
The type of image formed by a concave mirror depends on the position of
the object kept in front of the mirror. We can place the object at following
places
Refer the table:
• Between pole P and focus F
• At the focus
• Between focus F and center of curvature C
• At the center of curvature
• Beyond center of curvature
• At far off distances called infinity and cannot be shown in the figures
Image formation by a concave mirror for different positions of the object is shown
below in the table.

Concave mirrors are used as shaving mirrors, reflectors in car headlights, hand
torch and table lamps.

Large concave mirrors are used in field of solar energy to focus sun rays on objects
to be heated.
Case for concave lens

• A concave lens will always give a virtual, erect and diminished

image, irrespective of the position of the object.

• Nature, position and relative size of the image formed by a concave lens for
various positions of the object is given below in the table

Position of the Relative size of Nature of

Position of the object
image the image the image
Highly diminished, Virtual and
At infinity At focus F
point-sized erect
Between infinity and
Between F1 and Virtual and
optical center O of the Diminished
optical center O erect
lens
1.A convex lens has a focal length of 10cm.At which of the following
distance should an object be placed in front of this convex lens so that it
may act as a magnifying glass?
a) 15cm b)7cm c)20cm d )25cm
Ans = 7cm (The object distance will be less than the focal length of
the convex lens. So, the object is placed at 7 cm then
the magnifying image will be form. All values in options is greater than
the focal length. Hence, The object distance is 7 cm).
2. A concave mirror has a focal length of 10cm.At which of the
following distance should an object be placed so that it may be
virtual, erect, and magnified image?
a)12cm b)25cm c) 8cm d)15cm
Ans = 8cm (The object distance will be less than the focal length of
the concave mirror. So, the object is placed at 8 cm then
the magnifying image will be form. All values in options is greater than
the focal length. Hence, the object distance is 8 cm).
3. The rear-view mirror of a car is a plane mirror. A driver is reversing his
car at a speed of 2 m/s. The driver sees in his rear-view mirror the image
of a truck parked behind his car. The speed at which the image of the truck
appears to approach the driver will be
(a) 1 m/s (b) 2 m/s (c) 4 m/s (d) 8 m/s
Ans: (c) 4 m/s In case of plane mirror, the distance is always doubled
therefore the speed is in case between the image and the object. So, when
driver is reversing his car at a speed of 2 m/s, then the image is also
coming closer to the mirror by 2m/s. Thus, it seems that the image of the
truck appears to approach the driver at 4 m/s.

4. David is observing his image in a plane mirror. The distance between

the mirror and his image is 4 m. If he moves 1 m towards the mirror, then
the distance between David and his image will be.
(a) 3 m (b) 5 m (c) 6 m (d) 8 m
In the case of a plane mirror, the distance between the object and the
mirror (d1) is same as the distance between the image and the mirror (d2).

Distance between the mirror and David’s image, d2 = 4 m

Therefore, d1 = d2 = 4 m
If David moves 1 m towards the mirror, then d1 = 4 − 1 = 3 m
Again, d1 = d2 = 3 m
Therefore, the distance between David and his image is d1 + d2 = 3 + 3 = 6 m.
ANS: (c) 6 m

******************************************************************