Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Snell's law is the simple formula used to calculate the refraction of light when travelling between two media of differing refractive index. It is named after one of its discoverers, Dutch mathematician Willebrord van Roijen Snell (1580–1626).
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.
A simple example of such a problem is to find the curve of shortest length connecting two points. If there are no constraints, the solution is a straight line between the points. However, if the curve is constrained to lie on a surface in space, then the solution is less obvious, and possibly many solutions may exist.
In trigonometry, the Snellius–Pothenot problem is a problem first described in the context of planar surveying.Given three known points A, B, C, an observer at an unknown point P observes that the line segment AC subtends an angle α and the segment CB subtends an angle β; the problem is to determine the position of the point P.
From Snell's law it can be seen that the angle of refraction of light in a prism depends on the refractive index of the prism material. Since that refractive index varies with wavelength, it follows that the angle that the light is refracted by will also vary with wavelength, causing an angular separation of the colors known as angular dispersion .
If the ratio of lengths / is kept equal to / then the rays satisfy the law of sines, or Snell's law. The inner hypotenuse of the right-angled triangle shows the path of an incident ray and the outer hypotenuse shows an extension of the path of the refracted ray if the incident ray met a change of medium whose face is vertical at the point where ...
Due to Snell's law, the numerical aperture remains the same: NA = n 1 sin θ 1 = n 2 sin θ 2. In optics, the numerical aperture (NA) of an optical system is a dimensionless number that characterizes the range of angles over which the system can accept or emit light.
Willebrord Snellius [1] [2] (born Willebrord Snel van Royen) [3] (13 June 1580 [4] – 30 October 1626) was a Dutch astronomer and mathematician, commonly known as Snell. His name is usually associated with the law of refraction of light known as Snell's law .