Background information
- For background information on these experiments look at: Background information
Aim
To determine the relationship between the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection.
Equipment list
- Power pack
- Ray box
- Narrow light slit adapter
- Ruler
- Protractor
- Glass prism
Method
- Connect the ray box to the power pack’s DC terminals and turn the power pack to 6 volts
- Place the narrow slit adaptor into the slit furthest from the light bulb in the ray box.
- Take the glass prism from the ray box and trace along its sides on a piece of A4 paper with a pencil.
- At the midpoint of the prism’s side, draw the normal vertically.
- Place the rectangular prism back on the piece of paper from where you traced it.
- Using the ray box, shine a single beam of light at the point where the normal & prism meet.
- Using a pencil, draw 3 dots on the incident ray and on the reflected ray.
- Join the dots on the incident & reflected ray.
- Using a protractor, measure the angle of incidence and angle of reflection.
- Repeat steps 3-9 using a different light ray angle