Does Light Bend towards or away from the Normal as it Enters the Glass Block

Introduction General introduction to topics, including reasons for general investigation. In this survey we ask questions about the nature of light and the behavior of the beam as it passes through a transparent glass block. As this survey is important, we can further investigate how light behaves to serve as a basis for knowledge of future experiments and investigations. It also helps to understand the behavior of light as light passes through various objects.

As light travels from a dense medium to a dense medium (from air to plexiglass), the light bends in the normal direction and as the beam moves from a dense medium to a less dense medium it bends from the normal. The light entering the plexiglass plate must be parallel to the light emerging from the distal end of the plexiglass (they only experience lateral movement). Light is refracted and moves at various speeds when it encounters new media. The greater the change in speed, the more light will turn more strongly against the normal. However, even if the speed changes, the frequency has not changed. When the light beam propagates from the air to the plexiglass, as the light beam propagates from the initial medium to the next medium, the speed decreases and the light bends in the normal direction.

When light travels from one medium to another (eg from air to glass pieces) some or all of the light passes through the new medium. When light enters and leaves a new medium, light does not always propagate in the same direction. The law of refraction can be used to determine the new direction of light transmission. This law, also known as Snell's law, describes the ratio between the incident angle and the refraction angle for a given pair of media. As with reflections, the angle of incidence is the angle (normal) from the incoming path to the vertical line. Refraction angle is the angle measured from the transmitted (or refracted) path to the same vertical line (normal). The change in direction is the result of the change in the light wave velocity.