Question

According to Snell's law, $\frac{\sin i}{\sin r}=constant$

The value of constant depends upon:
a) Pair of media
b) Color of incident light
c) Wavelength
d) Refracting nature of material

• A. $\text{Only on}\left(a\right)$
• B. $\text{Only on}\left(b\right)$
• C. $\text{Only on}\left(a\right)\text{and}\left(d\right)$
• D. $\text{All}\left(a\right),\left(b\right),\left(c\right),\text{and}\left(d\right)$

Answer 1

Answer: (D)

$\text{All}\left(a\right),\left(b\right),\left(c\right),\text{and}\left(d\right)$

According to Snell's law,
$\frac{{\mu }_1}{{\mu }_2}=\frac{sin{\theta }_1}{sin{\theta }_2}=c$

$\Rightarrow c=\frac{{\mu }_1}{{\mu }_2}$

(where, ${\mu }_1$ and ${\mu }_2$ are the refractive indices of media $1$ and $2$ respectively and ${\theta }_1$ and ${\theta }_2$ are the angles of incident and refraction respectively)

$\Rightarrow c=\frac{speedoflightinmedium2}{speedoflightinmedium1}$

$\Rightarrow c=\frac{wavelengthoflightinmedium2}{wavelengthoflightinmedium}$

So, the constant depends on the pair of media, the color of the incident light, wavelength, and refracting nature of the material.