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31 views

doc3

Uploaded by

irafasha felicien
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EXPERIMENT 3: DETERMINATION OF INDEX OF REFRACTION OF GLASS BLOCK

Rationale
The bending of light by refraction makes it possible for us to have lenses,
magnifying glasses, prisms that are used in optical instruments such as
telescope, periscope, microscope, camera, just to mention few and the
phenomenon of rainbow formation is explained. Moreover, Refractive index
is useful for various reasons. For one thing, it can be used to calculate the
focusing power of lenses and the dispersive power of prisms. It can also be
used in estimating the thermophysical properties of hydrocarbons and
petroleum mixtures.
Objective
In this experiment, you will be determining the refractive index of a glass
block
Materials
• Glass block
• Protractor
• Soft board
• Plain paper
• 4 drawing pins
• 4 Optical pins
• Ruler
• Pencil
Experiment setup

1. With tack pins, fix a white sheet of paper onto a soft board.
2. Place a rectangular glass block on a white sheet of paper and draw out its outline
ABCD as above.
3. Draw the normal line MH to the side AB of the block outline.
4. Draw the incident light ray KM at 150 from the normal.
5. Place pins P and Q along the incident line KM
6. With your eye on the side CD of the block, place two other pins R and S so that
they are in line with image of P and Q.
7. Remove the block and join the points R and S to give the emergent ray M’ and K’.
8. Join M to M’ and measure the angle of refraction r.
9. Repeat the procedure from (3) to (7) for other angles of incidence I =
300 ,450 ,550 ,600 and 700.
10. Record the results in a table. Consider 3 decimal places.
Questions to guide interpretation of results
a. Plot the graph of sin i (x- axis) against sin r (y- axis).
b. Find the slope s of the graph,

1
c. Determine the refractive index, n=
S
sin i
d. Calculate the average of column . What does it represent?
sin r
e. Compare the answers in c and d. What may be the sources of the difference in d
and c?

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