(a) A narrow beam of light containing yellow (580 nm) and green (550 nm) wavelengths goes from polystyrene to air, striking the surface at a 30.0º incident angle. What is the angle between the colors when they emerge? (b) How far would they have to travel to be separated by 1.00 mm?
Hello again. I have done (a) by using Snell's law and I found the correct answer (.043 degrees), but I'm not sure how to find the distance of the two light rays in order for the colors to separated. Thank you for you help!
1 answer
draw the figure. you have all angles of the rays to the normal. You have the triangle (with angle and opposite side of 1mm), so figure one other of the interior angles of the triangle from the sketch, then use the law of sines to figure the distance of one of the paths. I would use the inner ray path, as the two distances traveled are different.
1 answer