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Common examples include the reflection of light, sound and water waves. The law of reflection says that for specular reflection (for example at a mirror) the angle at which the wave is incident on the surface equals the angle at which it is reflected. In acoustics, reflection causes echoes and is used in sonar.
Specular reflection, or regular reflection, is the mirror-like reflection of waves, such as light, from a surface. [ 1 ] The law of reflection states that a reflected ray of light emerges from the reflecting surface at the same angle to the surface normal as the incident ray, but on the opposing side of the surface normal in the plane formed by ...
The rays represent luminous intensity, which varies according to Lambert's cosine law for an ideal diffuse reflector. Diffuse reflection is the reflection of light or other waves or particles from a surface such that a ray incident on the surface is scattered at many angles rather than at just one angle as in the case of specular reflection.
An example of interference between reflections is the iridescent colours seen in a soap bubble or in thin oil films on water. Applications include Fabry–Pérot interferometers, antireflection coatings, and optical filters. A quantitative analysis of these effects is based on the Fresnel equations, but with additional calculations to account ...
Diagram of Lambertian diffuse reflection. The black arrow shows incident radiance, and the red arrows show the reflected radiant intensity in each direction. When viewed from various angles, the reflected radiant intensity and the apparent area of the surface both vary with the cosine of the viewing angle, so the reflected radiance (intensity per unit area) is the same from all viewing angles.
Snell's law (also known as the Snell–Descartes law, the ibn-Sahl law, [1] and the law of refraction) is a formula used to describe the relationship between the angles of incidence and refraction, when referring to light or other waves passing through a boundary between two different isotropic media, such as water, glass, or air.
Fig. 1: Underwater plants in a fish tank, and their inverted images (top) formed by total internal reflection in the water–air surface. In physics, total internal reflection (TIR) is the phenomenon in which waves arriving at the interface (boundary) from one medium to another (e.g., from water to air) are not refracted into the second ("external") medium, but completely reflected back into ...
For flat mirrors, the law of reflection implies that images of objects are upright and the same distance behind the mirror as the objects are in front of the mirror. The image size is the same as the object size. The law also implies that mirror images are parity inverted, which we perceive as a left-right inversion. Images formed from ...