Index of Refraction

[sunshine02]

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Does increasing n lead to more bending or less bending of light?

Some problems seem to imply one thing and others another. For instance, violet light (small wavelength, high n) experiences a lot of bending when it travels through a prism. This implies that high n=greater bending.

BUT:

If you put lens in water, why does focal length increase? Water has a higher n so light should be bent more and thus focal length decrease right?

 

[Sed8&Intub8]

More bending. More towards the normal

 

[Sed8&Intub8]

Well i mean. It could depend. If you are going from air to a higher N fluid it will bend more.

If the increasing of N leads to a smaller difference of the N's then it will bend less.

 

[MedHopeful20134]

Lights bends when it moves from one medium to another, for example, from air to water. I would suggest you re-read this section from the book. When you place a lens in water, you are going from water to glass to water. This situation is different from air to glass to air.