What happened to a ray of light when it travels from one medium to another having equal refractive indicate state the causes of refraction of light?
Answers
There will be no change in the path of the light ray if it passes through a medium with same refractive index as the other.
Refraction occur due to change in speed of the light. When ever the light enter a different medium with different characteristics, it changes its path due to the difference in the arrangement of particles in that medium, for example, let suppose a light ray entering a denser medium, the inter molecular particles are tightly bounded by each other & they have more force acting around them, since we know that light have particle nature too, so the light particles are attracted inside the medium, which cause an abrupt change in the path of the light ray. Similarly in the case of rarer medium, the particles of the medium are not close enough, there's a weak force between them, but still they occupy the space inside the medium, so without being attracted inside, light ray find a path way colliding the particles of the medium which again causes sudden change in the path of light ray, which is basically known as refraction.