DELHI PUBLIC SCHOOL

NADERGUL

SUBJECT: PHYSICS HUMAN EYE AND THE COLORFUL WORLD CLASS : X

IGHT :
 Structure of REFLECTION
eye:
AND REFRACTION

• Human eye is spherical in shape.

• Light enters the eye through a thin membrane called Cornea,
which is transparent and bulged on the front side.
• Most of the refraction for the light rays entering the eye occur
on the outer surface of the cornea.
• The crystalline lens provides the finer adjustment of focal
length.
• Iris is a dark, muscular diaphragm that controls the size of the
pupil.
• The pupil regulates and controls the amount of light entering the
eye.
• The eye lens forms a real and inverted image of the object on
the retina.
• Retina is a delicate membrane having enormous number of light
sensitive cells.
• The light sensitive cells get activated upon illumination and
generate electrical signals.
• These signals are sent to the brain via the optic nerves.
• The brain interprets these signals and finally processes the
information helping us to perceive the objects as they are.
 Power of Accommodation:- The ability of the eye lens to
adjust its focal length in order to view nearby and faraway
objects clearly is called power of accommodation.
 Least Distance Of Distinct Vision
• The minimum distance at which objects can be seen most
distinctly, without strain is called Least Distance of
Distinct Vision (LDDV)
• For a young adult with a normal vision, the near point is
about 25cm.
• The farthest point upto which the eye can see objects
clearly is called far point of the eye. It is infinity for a
normal eye.
 Cataract:- Sometimes, the crystalline lens of people of old age
becomes milky and cloudy. This condition is called cataract. It
is possible to restore the vision through a cataract surgery.
 Persistence of Vision:- The images of the objects that we view
remain on the retina for 1/16 th of a second.
 Defects of Vision:
• Sometimes the eye may gradually lose its power of
accommodation which will enable us to lose proper vision of
viewing nearby and far away objects.
 Myopia:- It is also known as near-sightedness.
• A person with myopia can see nearby objects clearly but cannot
see distant objects clearly.
• A person with this defect has his far away point as less than
infinity.
• This happens because-
• Excessive curvature of the eye lens.
• Elongation of the eyeball
• High converging power of the eye lens or short focal length
• A concave lens of suitable power can be used to correct the
defect.

 Hypermetropia: A person with Hypermetropia eye cannot see

nearby objects but can see distant objects clearly.
 The near point of such defect is more than 25cm
 This happens because of-
i) Low converging power of lens or more focal length
ii) Eyeball is too small
 Convex lens of proper focal length is used to correct this
defect.
 Presbyopia: This is that defect of vision due to which an old
person cannot see nearby objects clearly. This happens due to
the gradual weakening of ciliary muscles and diminishing
flexibility of the eye lens.
 Note- Sometimes, a person may suffer from both myopia and
Hypermetropia. Such people use bifocal lens where the lower
part of the lens is convex and the upper part is concave lens.

 Dispersion of light: The splitting of white light into seven

constituent colours when the light passes through a prism.

 Spectrum: The band of seven colours obtained on a screen due

to dispersion of white light.
 Note- Dispersion of white light occurs because the lights of
different colours bend through different angles while passing
through a glass prism.
 Recombination of spectrum into white light:
 Place a prism P1 on a table
 Take another similar prism P2 and place it by the side of first
prism in inverted position.
 Allow a beam of light to pass through P1, the light is dispersed
and forms a spectrum on P2.
 This spectrum enters P2 and comes out of P2 as white light.
 Angle Of Minimum Deviation:
 The peculiar shape of the prism makes the emergent ray bend at
an angle to the direction of the incident ray, which is known as
angle of deviation.
(OR)
 In a prism, the angle of deviation decreases with increase in the
angle of incidence up to a particular angle, which is called as
minimum angle of deviation.
˪i + ˪e = ˪a + ˪d
 Note: When white light passes through the prism split into
seven colours whereas when white light passes through the
glass slab does not produce seven colours due to the peculiar
shape of the prism as glass slab is a combination of two
triangular prisms.

 How is a rainbow formed?

• A rainbow is a natural spectrum which appears in the sky after
rain, it always forms opposite to the direction of the sun.
• The water droplets act like small prisms.
 • They refract and disperse the incident sunlight, reflect it
internally and finally refract it again when it comes out of the
raindrop.
• Due to the dispersion of light and internal reflection, different
colours reach the observer’s eye in the form of a rainbow.

 ATMOSPHERIC REFRACTION
When the light rays pass through the atmosphere having layers of
different densities and refractive indices, then refraction of light takes
place. This refraction of light by the earth’s atmosphere is called
“atmospheric refraction”
 Why do stars twinkle?
This is due to atmospheric refraction.
The ray of light from a star suffer refraction at each layer of
atmosphere and bend slightly towards the normal following a curved
path to reach the observer.
This ray of light keeps fluctuating from its mean position making the
star twinkle.
  Why don’t planets twinkle?
The planets are much closer to the earth and are thus considered as
extended sources of light.
The total variation in the amount of light entering our eye from all
individual point sized sources will average out to zero. Thereby,
nullifying the twinkling effect.
 Advanced sunlight and delayed sunset:
The sun is visible to us about two minutes before the actual sunrise
and two minutes after the actual sunset because of atmospheric
refraction. The air near the earth is called denser than at higher
altitudes. The rays undergo continuous refraction and bend towards
the normal making the sun appear higher than at the horizon.

 Tyndall effect: When a beam of light strikes fine particles of

the atmosphere, the path of the beam becomes visible. This
phenomenon of scattering of light by colloidal particles gives
rise to tyndall effect.
 Note-
The colour of scattered light depends on the size of the
scattering particles.
When light strikes very fine particles, it scatters colours of
shorter wavelength (blues)
If the size of the scattering particles is large enough, the
scattered light may even appear white.
 Why is the colour of the clear sky blue?
The molecules of air and other fine particles of the atmosphere
have smaller wavelengths than the wavelength of visible light.
 These are more effective in scattering lights of shorter
wavelengths. Therefore, the scattered blue light enters our eyes.
 Note-
 If the earth had no atmosphere, they would not have been any
scattering making the sky look dark.
 The sky appears dark to the passengers flying at very high
altitudes as scattering is not prominent at greater heights.
 Danger signals are red in colour as red has longer wavelength
and is least scattered by fog or smoke.
 Red colour of the sun during sunrise and sunset:
During sunrise and sunset, the sun is near the horizon, the sun rays
have to travel a longer distance through the atmosphere to reach us
where most of the blue light gets scattered and the light reaching us
would be of red and orange colours.
Whereas, during noon time, the sun is overhead, the light coming
from the sun has to travel relatively shorter distance to reach us,
where only a little of blue light gets scattered showing the sun as
white in colour.
Experimental setup for the verification of scattering of light in
colloidal solution:
• Place a strong source of white light at the front of the
converging lens, Allow the light beam to pass through a
transparent glass tank containing clean water. In about 2l of
clean water in the tank and add 1 to 2 ml of concentrated H2SO4
acid and 200g of thiosulphate(hypo).
• Allow the beam of light to pass through a circular, a hole made
of a cardboard. Obtain a sharp image of the circular hole on
screen by using converging lens.
• In two to three minutes, we will find fine sulphur particles
precipitating and we can see blue light from the three sides of
the glass stand, due to scattering of short wavelengths by
colloidal sulphur particles.
 • The colour of the transmitted light will firstly be orange-red
colour and then turns into bright crimson red colour

Numerical:
1.A person with myopic eye has his far away point as 80cm. What is
the nature and power of lens required to correct the defect?

2. A person with myopia has his far away point as 1.6m Find the
power and nature of the lens to be used?
3. The near point of Hypermetropic eye is 1m. Find the power and
nature of the lens to be used.

4.A person needs a lens of power -3.5D for far and 0.5D in the near
vision. Find the focal length of far and near vision.

5. A person needs a lens of power 5.5 dioptre for correcting his distant
vision. For correcting his near vision he needs a power of +1.5
dioptre. What is the focal length of the lens required for correcting (i)
distant vision, and (ii) near viion?
sol. The focal length of a lens is
given by