Term 3 General report

In term 3, we learnt about a new topic, which was reflection of light, refraction of light and colours. I was quite interested in the topic because it was rather simple at first, (I = r) but when I learnt about refraction, I felt that it was rather tough. Reflection of light included reflection on a plane mirror, a convex and a concave mirror. A mirror must be smooth in order to get a specular reflection, but when a mirror is not smooth, or when it is rough, you will get a diffused reflection, which means that the light will randomly go about in any direction with respect to the formula (i=r). About refraction, it means that the lights travel through an optical denser or less dense material (air, glass), In which the speed of the light will decrease and one side will travel faster than the other such that the light will “bend” towards the normal or away from the normal. If it travels through an optically denser material, light will bend towards the normal while the effects being the opposite if lights travels through a less dense material. Sometimes total internal reflection happens, in which when lights hit the other side of the surface at a correct angle, which is larger than the critical angle, total internal reflection happens in which no light energy is lost, and this process can continue forever and thus creating the invention optic fiber, which is a good use for light. I also learnt how to draw a ray diagram which is quite interesting and requires patience to draw it because the angle only allows minor mistakes up to a +/- 1 degree. For concave and convex mirror, we learnt how some of the images formed are virtual and real, in which it is real when it can be captured on a screen and virtual when it cannot.