PHYS 2225/2025 Lab 13 Geometric Optics Experiments

Refraction and Dispersion:

Refraction occurs when a wave moves from one medium or material into different material in which the
speed of the propagating wave changes. For instance, in moving from air to glass, the speed of light
decreases by about a 1/3 from 300,000 km/s to about 200,000 km/s. This change in speed is characterized
by the index of refraction, n. The speed of the propagation of light in any medium with the index of
refraction n is v = c/n where c is the speed of light in a vacuum c = 1/(oo)1/2. = 299 792 458 km/s.
Most glasses have indices of refraction near n=1.5, so the speed of light in such glasses is about
v=c/n=300,000/1.5 = 200,000 km/s.
Refraction is commonly characterized by Snells Law: n1 sin1
= n2 sin2 as illustrated in the figure to the left. The incident or
incoming ray moves from medium 1 with index of refraction n1
into medium 2 with index of refraction n2. If n1 > n2, the
refracted or transmitted ray bends away from the unit normal so
that 1 <2. If n1 < n2, the refracted ray bends toward the normal
with 1 >2.
However, the speed of the transmitted signal is not the same for all colors. That is, the index of refraction
is not truly a constant. It varies with frequency. This is called dispersion. It is responsible for the
phenomena we enjoy as rainbows, and is critical for analyzing the spectra of materials. Since color is
just a qualitative description of frequency, we can characterize this difference in the following way: Of
the visible colors, red move through glass or water the fastest, and violet moves the slowest, with the
other colors moving in their rainbow order. Thus, when you see a rainbow produced by a crystal facet
or prism or raindrop, the colors are dispersed in that order because the angle of refraction varies by color.
Red bends the least, and violet bends the most because of the difference in the speed of these waves.
So while the index of refraction is close to 1.5 for all visible colors in glass, it is not exact. The index of
refraction for red is a little less than it is for blue. We will measure that effect directly.

PHYS 2225/2025 Lab 13 Geometric Optics Experiments

Experiment 1 Measuring the dispersion of white light in glass:
Part 1: Make a rainbow! Using the trapezoidal prism, a
single slit white light source and some white paper, find
an angle of incidence through the prism that leads to a
dispersed rainbow-like beam on a white screen. The
figure to the right shows one such configuration. The
beam is only a few degrees wide. The colors are not well
rendered in the photograph, but the red end is on top of
the beam has it goes into the bright spot on the left and
the blue end is on the bottom side of the beam.
Use a pen to mark the orientation of the prism and the paths of the beams from the slit, through the prism
and outward. Turn this paper in at the end of the hour.
Part 2: Quantitative measure of the frequency dependence of the index of refraction for glass.
Configure the ray table and half-circular lens as shown below with the single ray light source. In the
figure, the incident light ray is coming from above at an angle of incidence of i = 40o. The refracted
beam is seen to exit the flat face of the lens in the lower half of the figure. While the colors are not well
portrayed, you should be able to tell that the ray disperses on exiting the lens, with the reddest side
passing near the 80 degree hash mark and the bluish top part of the ray passing nearer the 85 degree mark.
I am being deliberately imprecise. You will want to measure this as precise as you are able. (Note that the
reflected rate coming out of the photo in the middle of the left side is irrelevant to this experiment. )
Using the index of refraction for air to be nair = 1, use Snells
Law to find the index of refraction for the glass nglass for both the
red end of the beam and the blue end. Repeat the measurement
half a dozen times to get a good average and report the standard
deviation. For reference the values given by an independent
resource for a similar glass give nglass(blue) = 1.510 and nglass(red)
= 1.488. BE CAREFUL... Dont mixup the angles that you will
need to use! (If you get a value for the index of refraction that is
less than one, youve screwed up which angle is which. Take the
inverse of that answer!) (Historical note: 1/3 of the groups that
took this lab last year screwed it up and had to ask what was
wrong. If you read this you know!)
You may think that repeating the same measurement 6 times is
redundant and youll get the same thing, but not so. To repeat the
experiment, reorient the single slit, reorient the lens, re-find the angle of dispersion. Youll get different
answers every time. Record your measurement set in an Excel worksheet, and find the average and
standard deviation of the set of measurements. Then copy and paste spreadsheet work into a Word
document.

PHYS 2225/2025 Lab 13 Geometric Optics Experiments

Experiment 2: Get Your Junior Optometrist Badge! Optics with lens.
The refraction of light is exploited by
having light pass through a curved
surface so that each part of the beam
encounters a different angle of incidence
and will therefore have a different angle
of refraction.
There are several shared sets of optics
displays for you and your lab partner to
explore. These include the optical train of a camera, a telescope, microscope and the human eye. Please
take some time to play with each of the possible configurations for each instrument. There is nothing
quantitative to report, but please make a few comments on what you observe in your Word document for
the lab. Make sure that you investigate the eye with lens 1, 2 and 3 and their corrective lens 4 and 5.

In the figures above, the rays are incident on an eyeball lens that is too strong is has too small a radius
of curvature, and the focal point falls in front of the retina. This condition is called myopia or
nearsightedness. (A whopping 40% of young people are now diagnosed with myopia in their youth! Your
TA may tell you why if he or she dares expose you to the truth!) In order to view an object at infinity
(Anything past 20 feet is essentially infinity for the human eye) the focal point of the lens must be on the
retina. Since the lens by itself is too strong, a corrective weakening lens- or a diverging lens
(concave) lens must be placed in front of the eyes lens. This is illustrated in the figure in the upper
right.
It is very easy to calculate the correction for a nearsighted person. All you need is the formula relating
focal length, image distance and object distance, 1/f = 1/i + 1/o. The term 1/f is called the power of the
lens and is measured in diopters. You could equally well write the formula as P = 1/i + 1/o.
Consider the problem of a nearsighted person. Such a person needs to see something far away in focus, so
the object distance o, is infinity and 1/o = 0!, Thus the formula for the corrective lens is just P = 1/i.
Now consider this: A nearsighted person has a far point. This is the distance that a person can still see
an object in focus without the aid of glasses. The far point can easily be found by measuring the distance

PHYS 2225/2025 Lab 13 Geometric Optics Experiments

between your eye and where your outstretched finger first goes out of focus. (For somebody that is not
nearsighted, this will be infinity... you dont need glasses!) For a nearsighted person, this might be a few
tens of centimeters or less. (Try it!) Suppose that for a particular person this distance is 50 centimeters or
0.5 meters. Then you find the corrective lens power by assuming that you want to cast an object held at
infinity to the far point, which in this case is then i = -0.5 meters. Why the minus sign? Because the
image is on the same side of the lens as the object. So the corrective power required by our imaginary
nearsighted person would be P = 1/(-0.5) = -2 diopters. Its that simple! P = -1/(far-point).
If you want to account for the fact that the corrective lens sits about an inch away from your eye, subtract
an extra 2.5 cm from the far point.
Correcting Farsightedness is just as easy. in this case you measure the persons near-point which is the
closest position the person can still see in focus. (For a 40 year old, this might be 0.75 meters or more.)
Take this to be the desired image distance, i, and then assume that in doing close work the person will
hold an object closer, such as holding a book about 0.25 meters away. Then the formula for the correct
power of the lens for Farsightedness is just P = 1/0.25 -1/(near-point). Why is it a minus sign? Same
reason as before: the image is on the same side of the lens as the object. Suppose the near-point were 0.75
meters. Then the correct power needed would be P = 1/0.25 1/0.75 = 4 4/3 = 2.677 diopters.
If you are near or farsighted and can take your glasses off, use a yard stick to measure these numbers and
check your prescription! If you do, youll have earned your UVU Physics Junior Optometrist Badge!
Another thing you can check out with the lens and light
box that you have is aberration. In the figure to the
left, five rays are beamed through the lens, but only
three of them converge to a single point. These are the
three rays from the center part of the lens where the
angle of incidence is the smallest. For the outer two
rays, the angle of incidence is quite large. The failure to
form a single focal point destroys the resolution of any
image, making it blurry. To avoid this kind of aberration
the the angle of incidence needs to be kept as small as possible so that sin . This can be done by
using thin lenses so that only the central part of the lens is illuminated or by using parabolic-shaped
mirrors as the imaging elements. You can check this by using the parabolic mirror in your optics kits with
the same five-ray slit on your light box and see that all five rays converge to a point.
Experiment 3: Verifying the thin lens formula:
As given before the formula for image formation with thins lenses is
1/f = 1/i + 1/o
where f is the focal length of the lens and i is the distance from the lens to the image the lens produces
and o is the distance from the lens to the object the lens is viewing. The magnification of a thin lens is
M = - i/o where the minus sign indicates that the image is inverted.

PHYS 2225/2025 Lab 13 Geometric Optics Experiments

Set the imaging screen at the zero point of the optical track on your table. Put the light box on the track as
pictured below. Mount the 100 mm lens on the track. The 100mm refers to the focal length of the lens.
The light box is the object, the screen shows the image. Verify the thin lens formula by changing the
distances between the lens an the light source for 10 locations, making sure the image on the screen is in
optical focus.
Make an Excel spread sheet with the following columns: image distance object distance , focal
length and magnification. Make the thin lens formula to check 1/f for each measured position.
Report the average and standard deviation for the measured focal length. Make a plot of the
Magnification vs the ratio of i/o. Copy this data to your Word document for submission with the rest of
the lab.

Experiment 4: Compound Lens and Optical Instruments:

Optical instruments are often combinations of lens. Both the
simple telescope and simple microscope are examples of this. You
should have noticed in part 2 of this lab, that the eye piece of each
instrument is 1-focal length away from the image produced by the
objective lens.
For the case of the telescope this is a particularly simple relation.
The first lens in the telescope is called the objective lens and it
has the longest focal length of the two lenses. Use your 250mm
lens for this element. An object being viewed at infinity will be
cast to an image distance of 1/i = 1/f or i= f = 25 cm. in this case.
To view the image, take the 100 mm lens for an eye piece. Place it 100 mm from the image location of the

PHYS 2225/2025 Lab 13 Geometric Optics Experiments

objective lens, or a total of 250mm + 100 mm = 35cm from the object lens. Look through the combination
of lens and you will see a magnified, but inverted image of some distance object in the room. Try it!
Making a microscope is similar, only this time the objective lens is looking at something much closer
than infinity, so the image will be further from the lens than the focal point. It will be projected to some
intermediate image distance. The eye piece is then situated to focus on the image-plane of the objective
lens.You can mimic a microscope by using the 100 mm lens as the objective and the 250 mm lens as the
eye piece (the reverse of the telescope). Try it! The image above shows the light box being viewed under
the microscope. There are two images you see on the screen. the large and out of focus image is the image
from the 100 mm lens simply being projected to infinity. It is out of focus simply because the correct
image place is infinity away. The smaller, brighter image is the image being transmitted through the
250 mm eye piece lens.
Report on your success in your Word document. Email the document to phil.matheson@uvu.edu,
including your name, your lab partners name and the section number in the subject line of the email.