Friday, June 13, 2014

What is a normal ray?

In optics, a normal ray is a ray that is incident at 90 degrees to a surface. That is, the light ray is perpendicular or normal to the surface. The angle of incidence (angle an incident light ray makes with a normal to the surface) of the normal ray is 0 degrees. Since, the angle of incidence and angle of reflection are equal to each other, a normal ray will retrace its path upon reflection from a mirror (since angle of reflection will also be 0 degrees. Another characteristic of normal ray is that it does not undergo refraction as it moves from one medium to another. Light refracts as it crosses the interface separating two media with different refractive indices. In case of a normal ray, no such refraction takes place.


Hope this helps. 

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