A light ray strikes a flat, L = 3.7 cm thick block of glass of refractive index 1.47 in the attached figure, at an angle of È = 340 with the normal.
Calculate the lateral shift of the light ray, d.
To calculate the lateral shift of the light ray, we can use the formula:
d = L * tan(θ)
where:
- d is the lateral shift
- L is the thickness of the glass block
- θ is the angle of incidence with the normal
In this case, we are given:
- L = 3.7 cm
- θ = 340 degrees
First, we need to convert the angle from degrees to radians because the tangent function in most programming languages expects angles in radians. We can use the following conversion:
θ_radians = θ * (π / 180)
where:
- θ_radians is the angle in radians
- θ is the angle in degrees
- π (pi) is a mathematical constant approximately equal to 3.14159
Using this conversion, we can calculate θ_radians:
θ_radians = 340 * (π / 180)
Next, we can calculate the lateral shift, d, using the formula:
d = L * tan(θ_radians)
Substituting the given values, we have:
d = 3.7 * tan(340 * (π / 180))
Now, we can solve this equation to find the value of d using a scientific calculator or a programming language with trigonometric functions.