Optics

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The Reflection of Light

• Plane waves and their corresponding rays are useful when investigating the properties of mirrors.
• Consider a beam of light that reflects from a mirror. To study this situation, we begin by drawing
the normal to the surface of the mirror. The normal to a reflecting surface is a line drawn
perpendicular to the surface. An example is shown as a dashed line in the figure below.

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Plane Mirrors
• Rays of light leaving the top of the flower at point P reflect from the mirror and enter the eye of
an observer. To the observer, it appears that the rays are coming from the point P′ behind the
mirror.
• Similar remarks apply to rays of light coming from the base of the flower vase.
• In the figure below, a ray is drawn from the flower to the mirror—where it reflects—and then to
the eye.

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Plane Mirrors
• The construction shown in the figure indicates that the length of the line PQ
(object to mirror) is the same as the length of the line QP′ (mirror to image).
• In other words, the image formed by a plane mirror appears as far behind the
mirror as the object is in front of the mirror.
• We can write this in the form of an equation as follows:
image distance = −(object distance)
di = −do
where di is the image distance and do is the object
distance.

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Plane Mirrors
• The negative image distance means that the image is behind the
mirror.
• In general, an image that is behind a mirror is known as a virtual
image. The term virtual is used to indicate that no light passes
through the image and that it cannot be projected onto a screen. A
virtual image looks just as real to your eye as any physical object,
however.

© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc.


Plane Mirrors
• In the previous figure, notice that the height of the image is the same
as the height of the object. This is always true for plane mirrors.
• If we let hi denote the image height and ho the object height, we can
express this result with the following simple equation:
hi = ho
• Finally, it should be noted that plane mirrors reverse right and left.
This is the reason ambulances and other emergency vehicles have
mirror-image labels on the front.

© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc.


Curved Mirrors
• If the inside of this spherical section is a reflecting surface, the result
is a concave spherical mirror. If the outside surface is reflecting, the
result is a convex spherical mirror. The two situations are illustrated in
the figures below.

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Curved Mirrors
• In the figure below, a beam of light is directed toward the mirror
along its principal axis. This beam is represented in the figure by
several parallel rays.

• Notice that the rays reflect from the surface of the mirror and
converge—or focus—at the focal point, F.

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Curved Mirrors
• Several parallel rays are shown approaching a convex mirror in the figure below.

• Incoming rays of light that are parallel to the principal axis of a convex mirror spread
outward when they are reflected—just as if they had started from the focal point
behind the mirror. However, no light actually passes through the focal point of a
convex mirror.
© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc.
Curved Mirrors
• To distinguish between focal points in front and behind a mirror, we
give a sign to the focal length. The sign of the focal length is
determined as follows:
• The focal length of a mirror is positive if the focal point is in front of the
mirror. All concave mirrors have positive focal lengths.
• The focal point of a mirror is negative if the focal point is behind the mirror.
All convex mirrors have negative focal lengths.

© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc.


Curved Mirrors
• As the figure below illustrates, when an object is close to a convex
mirror, the image is practically the same size and distance from the
mirror. If the object is far from the mirror, the image is small and close
to the focal point.

© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc.


Curved Mirrors
• These three distances, do, di, and f, are related by the following equation:

• If two of these quantities are known, the mirror equation yields the third.

© 2014 Pearson Education, Inc.

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