You are given water, mustard oil, glycerine and kerosene. In which of these media would a ray of light incident obliquely at the same angle bend the most? Explain your answer.

Open in App

Solution

The ray of light bends towards the normal. When a ray of light enters from an optically rarer medium to an optically denser medium, its speed slows down and it bends towards the normal. The extent of bending is more when refractive index is more.

$n_{Glycerine} = 1.46$
$n_{Mustard oil} = 1.44$
$n_{t e x t W a t e r} = 1.33$

Glycerine has the highest refractive index among the three mediums. Hence light ray will bend maximum in glycerine.

Suggest Corrections

Similar questions

Q. You are given water, mustard oil, glycerine, and kerosene. In which of these media a ray of light is incident obliquely at same angle would bend the most ?

Question 15
You are given water, mustard oil, glycerine and kerosene. In which of these media a ray of light incident obliquely at same angle would bend the most?

(a) Kerosene
(b) Water
(c) Mustard oil
(d) Glycerine

You are given kerosene glycerine and water so in which of these light travels fastest and in which it bends more towards normal

Q. Rakesh did an experiment in which he kept his pencil inside a glass of water. He observed that the pencil bent along its length inside the water. He repeated the experiment by changing the medium to oil and glycerine and noticed the same observation but the amount of bending was different in each case.

If the refractive index of water, oil and glycerine is 1.33, 1.47 and 1.40 respectively, then in which medium did the light ray bend the least?

An obliquely incident light ray bends at the surface due to change in speed, when passing from one medium to other. The ray does not bend when it is incident normally. Will the ray have different speed in other medium?

Join BYJU'S Learning Program