When you are driving at night, there is no reflection from the dashboard of your car. Using the properties of light, describe why. Is this breaking the law of reflection? Why or why not?
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Answer:
2 Reflection, refraction, diffraction, and scattering
In this chapter we will describe how radiation is reflected off a surface, transmitted into a
medium at a different angle, how it is influenced by passing an edge or through an
aperture, and how it is scattered and spread out by interactions with particles at various
scales.
We will focus on the propagation of light. In order to describe the direction in which light
propagates, it is often convenient to represent a light wave by rays rather than by wave
fronts. In fact, rays were used to describe the propagation of light long before its wave
nature was established. Geometrically, the duality is easy to handle: Whenever we
indicate the direction of propagation of light by a ray, the wave front is always locally
perpendicular to the ray.
2.1 Reflection
Figure 2-1. Spheres reflected in the floor and in each other.
Reflection occurs when a wave hits the interface between two dissimilar media, so that all
of or at least part of the wave front returns into the medium from which it originated.
Common examples are reflection of light, as shown in figure 2-1, as well as reflection of
surface waves that may be observed in a pool of water, or sound waves reflected as echo
from a wall.
Reflection of light may be specular or diffuse. The first occurs on a blank mirroring
surface that retains the geometry of the beams of light. The second occurs on a rougher
surface, not retaining the imaging geometry, only the energy.
Explanation: