How do you use snell's law to find the speed of light in jello?

Answer 1

Snell's law combines trigonometry and refractive indices to determine different aspects of refraction. The law is as follows:

(n1)(sinX1) = (n2)(sinX2);

where n1 is the refractive index of the first medium, X1 is the angle of incidence (the angle between the incident ray and the normal), n2 is the refractive index of the second medium, and X2 is the angle of refraction (the angle between the refracted ray and the normal).

Setting up an experiment using jello and a laser, one can determine the index of refraction in the jello. Shine the laser at an arbitrary angle and record this angle. Then measure the refractive angle seen in the jello (this is the angle between the ray in the jello and the normal). The index of refraction for air is 1.0003. Now substitute all three values into Snell's law and solve for n2, the refractive index of jello.

An index of refraction is defined as the speed of light in a vacuum divided by the speed of light in a medium. Once n2 is determine, use the following equation:

n2 = c / v.

Substitute n2 and the speed of light in a vacuum (which is approximately 299,792,458 meters per second), and solve for v. The value obtained will be the speed of light in jello.