Refraction At Spherical Surfaces: Study with Video Lessons, Practice Problems & Examples

A turtle lives in a spherical glass tank filled with water that has a radius of 25 cm. The turtle notices a dog sniffing around their tank. The dog's nose is located 10 cm from the tank's outside edge. From the turtle's perspective inside the tank, how far is the dog's nose located from the outside edge of the tank? (Assume that the glass tank's thickness can be ignored.)

Imagine that a laser beam is directed parallel to an optical axis which then passes through the center of a perfectly transparent spherical crystal. Convergence will occur at a point located on the crystal's rear surface. Determine what the crystal's refractive index will be.

A jewelry appraiser uses a large, solid glass sphere with a radius of 9.0 cm. He places a small, intricate diamond 8.0 cm from the sphere's surface. The diamond's image is formed on the opposite side of the glass sphere. Determine the distance between the diamond image and the sphere's center.

A rubber duck is submerged in a round bottom flask containing water (n = 1.33) and is 15 cm from the wall of the flask. The spherical section of the flask has a 44 cm diameter. What should the apparent distance and magnification of the duck be if the person is standing right next to the flask? (The walls of the flask are very thin, so ignore refraction caused by them)

A lapidary cuts and polishes one side of a cylinder-shaped diamond (n = 2.41) into a spherical surface of radius 6 cm. A Rubik's cube 10cm tall is placed on its axis 30 cm left of the vertex. Determine how far away the image is as well as its height. Should the image be real or virtual?

A student is experimenting with a plane mirror and finds that when the object is moved to a certain distance, the image that is formed as a result is upright and is the same size as the object itself. (i) What is the radius of curvature of the mirror that the student is using, and (ii) what does this imply about the object and image distances?

Imagine a small decorative stone placed inside a transparent, spherical glass bowl filled with water. The bowl, having a uniform thickness, which is negligible, has a radius of curvature of 32.0 cm. An observer, standing outside the bowl, looks at the stone through the glass. If the stone is positioned at the center of the bowl, where will the observer perceive its image? Additionally, if the stone is moved further from the observer and is now located 20.0 cm from the side of the bowl, where will its image now appear?

An object is placed in front of a plane mirror. The object has a height of 1.2 meters. What would be (i) the magnification of the image produced by the mirror (ii) the nature of the image?

In a jewelry store, a large, shiny convex gemstone is placed on display. When a lit candle is positioned nearby, a clear image of the flame can be seen on the gemstone's curved surface. A photographer captures this image, and the flame appears upright and smaller in the photo. (i) Does the gemstone act as a lens or a mirror in this scenario? (ii) Is the gemstone's surface being viewed right side up, or is the photo taken upside down? (iii) Based on the optical properties of a convex surface, explain why the flame appears upright and reduced in size.

On a liquid drop, a light ray is incident. The incident angle θ is very small, and the incident ray gets reflected inside the raindrop and exits the drop parallel to the initial incident ray, as shown in the figure below. Find the refractive index of the liquid drop n.