Reflection of Light

It is the bouncing back of light rays in the same medium. If a ray of light strikes a plane
mirror and is bounced back on the same side, the process is called Reflection of Light.

Incident Ray:
It is the ray of light which strikes the surface.

Reflected Ray:
It is the ray of light which is bounced back after striking the surface.

Normal:
It is an imaginary 90° line drawn from the point of incidence of plane mirror.

Point of Incidence:
It is the point at which the ray of light strikes the surface.

Angle of incidence:
It is the angle between the incident ray and the normal (∠ i).

Angle of Reflection:
It is the angle between the reflected ray and the normal (∠ r ).

Laws of Reflection: Plane Mirror

Incident Ray
1. Angle of incidence is always equal to
the angle of reflection.
∠ i=∠ r
∠i
Normal
2. The incident ray, the reflected ray ∠r
Point of Incidence
and the normal all lie in the same
plane.
Reflected Ray
∠i =∠r

Experiment ⇨ To prove laws of reflection of light

Apparatus:
 Wooden Board
 Drawing Sheet
 Plane Mirror
 Common Pins
 Thumb Pins
 Protractor

Steps:
Fix the drawing sheet the wooden board with thumb pins and draw an outline of a
plane mirror in the middle of the sheet. From the midpoint of the outline, draw a
90° line (normal) and an angle of incidence (e.g. 40° to the normal). Fix two pins
on the incident ray line and look from the other side of the paper and fix two more
pins in such a manner that all 4 pins appear to be in a straight line. Draw the
reflected ray after removing the pins and measure the angle of reflection.

Observation:
Angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Keep in mind that due to human
error the angles might not be equal but very close.

Steps for Accuracy:

 Thin lines are drawn for an accurate measurement.
 While making the positions of the reflected ray pins we observe the bottom so
that the tilt of pins don’t affect.
 The incident ray, the reflected ray and the normal must be more than 5cm long
as the radius of the protractor is 5cm.

Result:
The experiment proves the laws of reflection.

Image Formation by a Plane Mirror:

1. A plane mirror forms a virtual image; this image cannot be obtained on the
screen.
2. The size of the image in the plane mirror is equal to the size of the object.
3. The distance of the image in the mirror is equal to the distance of the object in
front of the mirror.
4. The image formed by a plane mirror is laterally inverted; it means that the right
hand side of the object comes to the left hand side of the image and vice versa.

Ray Diagrams:

 Place an object in front of a x cm x cm

plane mirror.
 Construct the incident ray and
the reflected ray using the law Object Image
∠ i=∠ r .
 Extend the reflected ray
backwards until the object ∠i
Normal
distance from the mirror is
∠r
the same as the image
distance from the mirror.
 Object and image have to be
exactly opposite to each other.
Eye

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