Question 34.6: A View from the Fish’s Eye Find the critical angle for an ai...

A View from the Fish’s Eye

Find the critical angle for an air–water boundary. (Assume the index of refraction of water is 1.33.)

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Conceptualize Study Figure 34.25 to understand the concept of total internal reflection and the significance of the critical angle.

Categorize We use concepts developed in this section, so we categorize this example as a substitution problem.

Apply Equation 34.9 to the air-water interface:

\sin \theta_c=\frac{n_2}{n_1} \quad\left(\text { for } n_1>n_2\right)     (34.9)

\begin{aligned}\sin \theta_c & =\frac{n_2}{n_1}=\frac{1.00}{1.33}=0.752 \\\theta_c & =48.8^{\circ}\end{aligned}
34.6

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