New formulation of the laws of reflection of light

Ángel Luis Pérez; Guadalupe Martínez; María Isabel Suero

doi:10.1117/12.2026367

18 November 2013 New formulation of the laws of reflection of light

Ángel Luis Pérez, Guadalupe Martínez, María Isabel Suero

Proceedings Volume 8785, 8th Iberoamerican Optics Meeting and 11th Latin American Meeting on Optics, Lasers, and Applications; 87857B (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2026367
Event: 8th Ibero American Optics Meeting/11th Latin American Meeting on Optics, Lasers, and Applications, 2013, Porto, Portugal

Abstract

A new formulation of the laws of reflection of light based on the particle model is presented, and it is shown the equivalence between the new and the classic formulations. The proposed formulation has a significant educational value, as it allows drawing analogies between the phenomena of light reflection and elastic collisions, which are very well known by students. The proposed formulation is: “If at one point on a surface whose orientation in space is defined by a unit vector k, strikes an incident ray corresponding to a plane wave (propagating through a homogeneous and isotropic medium) whose direction of propagation coincides with that from a unit vector u_i [expressed in terms of its components with respect to an orthonormal coordinate system, with one of its axis coinciding with the direction of k (u_i = u_ix i + u_iy j + u_iz k)], it will be reflected so that the unit vector whose direction coincides with that from the reflected ray, u_r, will only differ from the unit vector whose direction coincides with that from the incident ray, in the change of the sign of the component in the direction of k (u_r = u_ix i + u_iy j - u_iz k)”. Stated in everyday language, is equivalent of saying that the reflection of light occurs as if the photons underwent perfectly elastic collisions with the surface in question. As an example, this formulation is applied for the resolution of the classic reflection problem of the three plane mirrors forming a trirectangular trihedron.

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Ángel Luis Pérez, Guadalupe Martínez, and María Isabel Suero "New formulation of the laws of reflection of light", Proc. SPIE 8785, 8th Iberoamerican Optics Meeting and 11th Latin American Meeting on Optics, Lasers, and Applications, 87857B (18 November 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2026367

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KEYWORDS

Reflection

Mirrors

Particles

Photons

Wave propagation

Geometrical optics

Beam propagation method

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