I go this question in a test just today, but I know I got it wrong because I didn't study this section.
It was something along the lines of this I'm pretty sure.
"Explain why there is no critical angle when light travels from air to water"
Can someone explain this to me?
The critical angle is an angle in which light going from a optically dense substance to a lessor dense substance will undergo total internal reflection. If light is going from air, the optically less dense (lower index of refraction), there will be no total reflection at the boundry.
Basically what bobpursely is saying is that you are going from a high index of refraction to a low index of refraction, so you'll have total reflection inside the object. if you are going from air to water, then you are going from a low index to high index, so you won't have total reflection inside the object. bobpursely, correct me if i'm wrong, but i think that's what you're saying.
Sure, I can explain why there is no critical angle when light travels from air to water.
To understand this concept, we need to consider the phenomenon of refraction, which is the bending of light when it passes from one medium to another. Refraction occurs because light travels at different speeds in different mediums.
The angle at which light is incident on the interface between two mediums is known as the angle of incidence. When light travels from air to water, it slows down because the refractive index of water is higher than that of air. As a result, the light ray bends towards the normal, which is an imaginary line perpendicular to the interface.
The critical angle is the angle of incidence at which the angle of refraction becomes 90 degrees. At this angle, the refracted ray grazes along the interface between the two mediums. If the angle of incidence exceeds the critical angle, total internal reflection occurs. This means that all the light is reflected back into the original medium instead of being transmitted to the second medium.
However, when light travels from air to water, the critical angle does not exist. This is because the refractive index of water is higher than that of air, meaning that light rays always bend towards the normal when entering water. As a result, there is no angle of incidence at which total internal reflection can occur.
Therefore, in the case of light traveling from air to water, there is no critical angle.