Science, asked by Roufkhursheed, 1 year ago

why we use sin in second law of refraction not cos,

Answers

Answered by kashisharora
3
What do you mean based on sine? Choose the angle between the interface and the ray of light, and you have cosines instead of sines. It is just a convention to choose the angle between the normal to the interface and the ray of light, which makes the sine function appear.

More imporant then asking yourself this question, is to understand what it is that Snell’s law describes; that is, the principle of least time. When we model light with rays (we can do it when it’s wavelength is smaller than any object it passes through, so to speak) it happens that the ray always takes the path that will take less time.

While passing through a given medium, like air, the ray will go straight, because that’s the path which will take less time obviously (it is the shortest).
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