Re: Snell's Law

"shamikphy@xxxxxxxxx" <shamikphy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello ,
I have a question.The question is:
why a ray of light when passes through a medium of higher refractive
index to a medium of
lower refractive index or reverse, changes its direction? why Snell's
law is obeyed by light?

I would recommend a look at Optics by Jenkins and White or the fine
text by Hecht and Zajack.

You will find that Maxwell's equations, formally stated by James Clark
Maxwell in 1865, have intrinsic in their solution the statement of
Snell's law.

You could also look in Corson and Lorain (under grad text in E&M).

There are lots of simplistic answers and there may be earlier
empirical derivations but the heart of the explaination lies in the
mathematical solution to Maxwell's equations.

Hope this helps.




James E. Klein
jameseklein@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Engineering Calculations
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