Light Waves Project - Ean and Lucy

Our interactive SIM using Scratch that demonstrates refraction and reflection of light.

Snell's law is a formula used to find the angle of refraction when passing through a boundary such as air, water, and glass.

The formula is n1 sinθ1 = n2 sinθ2, the n1 in our simulation is air which would be 1.00029 and the n2 in our simulation which for this example is water (it could be air, water, or glass) is 1.33, so 1.00029 sin35° = 1.33 sinθ2, the 35° is the measurement of the first angle (the angle that isn't refracted or reflected), and the θ2 is the refracted angle, which we don't know yet. Then, once you have that equation you multiply 1.00029 by sin35° and then do the inverse operation which would be dividing 1.33 from .57374 which is the number you got from multiplying 1.00029 by sin35, so your equation after doing the inverse would look like this .43138 = sinθ2, so to get the θ2, you just do sin-1(.43138) which equals 25.5°. 25.5°is the refracted angle.

1.00029 sin35° = 1.33 sinθ2

.57374 = 1.33 sinθ2

.43130 = sinθ2

θ2 = 25.5

We used a slider to change the material from air to water to glass and just made the color less transparent as it got into higher numbers to show that it was going from air to water and from water to glass. So if you put the reflective index on 1.02 it would be air, 1.33 is water, 1.52 is glass.