When you look into a mirror, you see yourself. When you look at a wall, you see the wall's colour. Both of these happen because of a fundamental property of physics: the Reflection of Light.
Reflection: Bouncing back of light into the same medium.
Law 1: Angle of Incidence (i) = Angle of Reflection (r).
Law 2: Incident ray, reflected ray, and normal lie on the same plane.
Regular Reflection: Smooth surface (mirrors).
Diffused Reflection: Rough surface (walls, paper).
The Reflection of Light is the phenomenon of the bouncing back of light rays into the same medium when they strike the surface of an object.
Highly polished surfaces, like mirrors, reflect almost all the light that falls on them, while rough surfaces scatter the light.
Whenever light reflects off a smooth surface, it strictly follows two laws:
1. First Law: The angle of incidence (∠i) is always exactly equal to the angle of reflection (∠r). (∠i = ∠r) (If light hits a mirror at a 30° angle, it bounces off at a 30° angle).
2. Second Law: The incident ray, the reflected ray, and the normal (a perpendicular line drawn at the point of incidence) all lie in the same plane.
The bouncing back of light rays into the same medium after striking a surface is called the reflection of light.
1. The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection (∠i = ∠r). 2. The incident ray, the reflected ray, and the normal at the point of incidence all lie in the same plane.
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