Lab #4 TOPIC: REFRACTION OF LIGHT

Apparatus: Ray box, Channel, Protractor, Glass Block Procedure: To investigate how light is
refracted an experiment is set up in a dark room with a ray of light from the Ray box being
directed at a glass block placed on a rotating protractor. The glass block is positioned as
accurately on the possible at the center line of the protractor to mitigate systematic errors. The
protractor is carefully rotated and the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction at the glass
block are written. The values are obtained to calculate the sine of the values in both columns.
The sine of the angles are used to make a graph of ‘Sine of angle of incidence against Sine of
angle of refraction’. A line of best fit was drawn from the result

Angle of Incidence Angle of Refraction Sine of Angle of Sine of Angle of

Incidence Refraction

0 0 0 0

5 4 0.087 0.0698

10 8 0.174 0.139

15 10 0.259 0.174

20 13 0.342 0.225

25 16 0.423 0.276
 30 20 0.5 0.342

Discussion: During the experiment the glass block had to be carefully setup on the protractor in

order to get accurate results. The protractor was rotated using increments of 5 and the

measurements ranged from 0 to 30; in effect 6 rows of values were obtained for the angle of

incidence and angle of refraction. From the values received their sine were calculated and a

graph was plotted. The values in both columns of each row were very close to each other; the

values from the angle of refraction were slightly lower than those from the angle of incidence,

both values rose proportionally though. This would be because when light transitions from one

medium to another it bends at an angle. When light enters the arc of the glass block it deviates

at the flat surface on the block, the result it the light ray leaving the block at a different angle

than the angle of incidence. The graph plotted shows that the sine of values given are directly

proportional to each other because as the sine of the angle of incidence increases the sine of

the angle of refraction also increases. Potential sources of error could be from.