• Question: What is internal reflection?

    Asked by desorgherm to Christina, Jess on 27 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Christina Pagel

      Christina Pagel answered on 27 Jun 2013:

      that’s very hard to answer without diagrams and some maths… basically it’s something that can happen when light passes from a denser substance like water into a less dense substance like air- normally it will bend and a bit of will reflect off (that’s why you can see stuff underwater when you’re outside but it all looks a bit wonky)… however, if light is hitting the air frim the water at more than a certain angle, then all of it will just bounce off back into the water. That’s total internal reflection…

      here is a nice webpage explaining it reasonably clearly i think!

      http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/refrn/u14l3b.cfm

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