When a ray of light hits a shiny surface(mirror), it undergoes reflection. When reflection happens some of the light from that ray gets absorbed by the shining surface. Why?
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ARTICLE Reflection of light EXPLORE
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Reflection
1. The change in direction, or bouncing back of a wave when it strikes a surface.
2. Mirroring.
3. Casting back, as in light or heat.
is when light bounces off an object. If the surface is smooth and shiny, like glass, water or polished metal, the light will reflect at the same angle as it hit the surface. This is called specular reflection.
Types of reflection
Light reflects from a smooth surface at the same angle as it hits the surface. For a smooth surface, reflected light rays travel in the same direction. This is called specular reflection. For a rough surface, reflected light rays scatter in all directions. This is called diffuse reflection.
Diffuse reflection is when light hits an object and reflects in lots of different directions. This happens when the surface is rough. Most of the things we see are because light from a source has reflected off it.
For example, if you look at a bird, light has reflected off that bird and travelled in nearly all directions. If some of that light enters your eyes, it hits the retina at the back of your eyes. An electrical signal is passed to your brain, and your brain interprets the signals as an image.
Specular reflection
The angle at which light hits a reflecting surface is called the angle of incidence, and the angle at which light bounces off a reflecting surface is called the angle of reflection
Lake reflection
This photo of Lake Matheson shows specular reflection in the water of the lake with reflected images of Aoraki/Mt Cook (left) and Mt Tasman (right). The very still lake water provides a perfectly smooth surface for this to occur.
If you want to measure these angles, imagine a perfectly straight line at a right angle to the reflective surface (this imaginary line is called ‘normal’). If you measure the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection against the normal, the angle of incidence is exactly the same as the angle of reflection. With a flat mirror, it is easy to show that the angle of reflection is the same as the angle of incidence.