Introduction

What is reflection?
When a light ray traveling in one medium encounters a boundary with another medium,
part of the incident light is reflected. (reflected back)

Laws of reflection
states that the angle of incidence of a wave equals angle of reflection.
i=r
What is refraction?
When a ray of light traveling through a transparent medium encounters a boundary leading
into another transparent medium, part of the energy is reflected and part enters the second
medium. The ray that enters the second medium is bent at the boundary and is said to be
refracted. The incident ray, the reflected ray, and the refracted ray all lie in the same plane
Snell’s principle
It is a law that governs the relation ship between angle of incidence and angle of refraction.
The angle of refraction, depends on the properties of the two media and on the angle of
incidence through the relationship

 where v1 is the speed of light in the first medium and v2 is the speed of light in the
second medium
 The path of a light ray through a refracting surface is reversible.

Hugens’s principle
history
Christian Huygens
Dutch Physicist and
Astronomer (1629–1695)
Huygens is best known for his contributions to the fields of optics and dynamics. To Huygens,
light was a type of vibratory motion, spreading out and producing the sensation of light when
impinging on the eye. On the basis of this theory, he deduced the laws of reflection and
refraction and explained the phenomenon of double refraction. (Courtesy of Rijksmuseum voor
de Geschiedenis der Natuurweten schappen and Niels Bohr Library.)
What is the huygens’s principle?
It is a principle describing how waves propagate through a medium. Huygens’s principle is a
geometric construction for using knowledge of an earlier wave front to determine the position of a
new wave front at some instant.
In Huygens’s construction, all points on a given wave front are taken as point sources for the
production of spherical secondary has passed, the new position of the wave front is the surface
tangent to the wavelets waves, called wavelets, which propagate outward through a medium with
speeds characteristic of waves in that medium After some time interval

Huygens’s diagrams to explain reflection and re fraction.

Reflection
 The figure illustrates
Huygens' construction
for a narrow, parallel
beam of light to prove the law of reflection. Huygens' principle must be modified to accommodate the
case in which a wavefront, such as AC, encounters a plane interface, such as XY, at an angle. Here the
angle of incidence of the rays AD, BE, and CF relative to the perpendicular PD is thetai. Since points
along the plane wavefront do not arrive at the interface simultaneously, allowance is made for these
differences in constructing the wavelets that determine the reflected wavefront. If the interface XY were
not present, the Huygens construction would produce the wavefront GI at the instance ray CF reached
the interface at I. The intrusion of the reflecting surface, however, means that during the same time
interval required for ray CF to progress from F to I, ray BE has progressed from E to J and then a distance
equivalent to JH after reflection. Thus a wavelet of radius JH centered at J is drawn above the reflecting
surface. Similarly, a wavelet of radius DG is drawn centered at D to represent the propagation after
reflection of the lower part of the beam. The new wavefront, which must now be tangent to these
wavelets at points M and N, and include the point I, is shown as KI in the figure. A representative
reflected ray is DL, shown perpendicular to the reflected wavefront. The normal PD drawn for this ray is
used to define angles of incidence and reflection for the beam. The construction clearly shows the
equivalence between the angles of incidence and reflection.

Refraction
Here we must take into account a
different speed of light in the upper
and lower media. If the speed of light in vacuum is c, we express the speed in the upper medium by the ratio c/ni, where
ni is the refractive index. Similarly, the speed of light in the lower medium is c/nt. The points D, E and F on the incident
wavefront arrive at points D, J and I of the plane interface XY at different times. In the absence of the refracting surface,
the wavefront GI is formed at the instant ray DF reaches I. During the progress of ray CF from F to I in time t, however,
the ray AD has entered the lower medium, where the speed is different. Thus if the distance DG is vit, a wavelet of radius
vtt is constructed with center at D. The radius DM can also be expressed as

Applying huygens’s principle to reflection and refraction

Reflection
As shown in Figure 2, the reflected wavefront has to be constructed as follows :

(i) From B as the center draw an arc of a circle of radius equal to distance DE.

(ii) From E draw the tangent EF to the arc.

(iii) E and F and all points between them are in phase as D & B all points between them
are also in a phase different from the first.

(iv) BFH and the parallel ray EG then are reflected rays.

Consider triangles BDE and BFE, then

Also, from the construction of the diagram it is obvious that the incident ray, the
reflected ray and the normal lie in the same plane (the plane of the diagram) and the
incident ray, and the reflected ray are on either sides of the normal. Thus, the laws of
reflection are proved.

Refraction
The refracted plane wave front EF is constructed from the incident plane wavefront BD
as follows :

(i) From B as the center draw an arc of a circle of radius V2t, where t is the time taken by
light to travel from D to E in medium :1, i.e. DE = V1t.

(ii) Draw tangent EF to this arc.

(iii) Then EF is the required refracted plane wavefront.

(iv) EG & parallel line BFH are refracted rays normal to the refracted wavefront EF.

A different model to
explain reflection and
refraction
In optics, the corpuscular theory of light, arguably set forward by Descartes in 1637,
states that light is made up of small discrete particles called "corpuscles" (little particles)
which travel in a straight line with a finite velocity and possess impetus. This was based
on an alternate description of atomism of the time period.

Isaac Newton was a pioneer of this theory, notably elaborated upon by him in 1672. This
early conception of the particle theory of light was an early forerunner to the modern
understanding of the photon. This theory cannot explain refraction, diffraction and
interference, which require an understanding of the wave theory of light.

Corpuscular theories, or corpuscularianism, are similar to the theories of atomism,

except that in atomism the atoms were supposed to be indivisible, whereas corpuscles
could in principle be divided. Corpuscles are single, infinitesimally small, particles which
have shape, size, color, and other physical properties which alter their functions and
effects in phenomena in the mechanical and biological sciences. This later led to the
modern idea that compounds have secondary properties different from the elements of
those compounds. Gassendi asserts that corpuscles are particles that carry other
substance or substances and are of different types. These corpuscles are also emissions
from various sources such as solar entities, animals or plants. Robert Boyle was a strong
proponent of corpuscularianism and used the theory to exemplify the differences
between a vacuum and a plenum, by which he aimed to further support his mechanical
philosophy and overall atomist theory.About a half-century after Gassendi, Isaac
Newton used existing corpuscular theories to develop his particle theory of the physics
of light.

Isaac Newton argued that the geometric nature of reflection and refraction of light
could only be explained if light was made of particles, referred to as corpuscles, because
waves do not tend to travel in straight lines. Newton sought to disprove Christiaan
Huygens' theory that light was made of waves. In his 44th trial in a series of experiments
concerning physics of light, he concluded that light is made of particles and not waves
by having passed a beam of white light through two prisms which were held at such an
angle that the light split into a spectrum after passing through the first prism and then
was recomposed, back into white light, by the second prism.
References
1.Text book of physics (moe)

2. Wikipidia.net
3. Encarta

4. Serway physics