I know there have been other posts but I'm still no quite sure if I got it down...
So from what I understood there a couple fundamental rules about waves:
1) frequency does not change when a wave is going from one medium to another.
2) the speed of the wave is determined by the medium (which makes sense, since frequency - as stated in #1 - is kept constant).
But, then there are exceptions to rule #2.
Although index of refraction seemed to be a value of a specific material (the ratio of c/v) it can actually change when dispersion happens. Dispersion is when a light is shine through a prism and different colors are separated/bent differently due to different velocity of each wave color.
Now that's when I start getting very confused..
From what I read the different bending degrees of each light color is dependent on that color's frequency. Apparently frequency determines the velocity of the color through a medium.
All the info I found states that red (lower frequency) will bent less due to its lower n, because it has lower velocity. How come is that true?
1. At first I thought.. well, red light does have a lower frequency but it also has a higher wavelength.. so shouldn't each factor compensate for the other? keeping v the same? Should we just take it as an exception?
2. If velocity is determined by frequency, shouldn't red have a lower velocity because v=lambda*f hence giving a bigger n?
So from what I understood there a couple fundamental rules about waves:
1) frequency does not change when a wave is going from one medium to another.
2) the speed of the wave is determined by the medium (which makes sense, since frequency - as stated in #1 - is kept constant).
But, then there are exceptions to rule #2.
Although index of refraction seemed to be a value of a specific material (the ratio of c/v) it can actually change when dispersion happens. Dispersion is when a light is shine through a prism and different colors are separated/bent differently due to different velocity of each wave color.
Now that's when I start getting very confused..
From what I read the different bending degrees of each light color is dependent on that color's frequency. Apparently frequency determines the velocity of the color through a medium.
All the info I found states that red (lower frequency) will bent less due to its lower n, because it has lower velocity. How come is that true?
1. At first I thought.. well, red light does have a lower frequency but it also has a higher wavelength.. so shouldn't each factor compensate for the other? keeping v the same? Should we just take it as an exception?
2. If velocity is determined by frequency, shouldn't red have a lower velocity because v=lambda*f hence giving a bigger n?
