Term 2 Reflections

In term 2, we studied physics, reflection and refraction. Reflection was no problem as it was quite straight forward. However, it took me quite a while to get a hang of refraction. It was the first time I ever heard of refraction and it was quite complicated. Though the topics tested this term was hard, I still managed to get a A1 for science that term. I would try my best and do well for the subsequent tests. 

Reflection was no trouble for me as it was easy and straight-forward. There are two laws of reflection: 

     1) The incident ray, reflected ray and the normal to the reflecting surface all lie in the same plane. 

     2) The angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection. 

There are also two types of reflection, regular and diffuse. Regular reflection occurs on smooth surfaces such as mirrors and polished metals. For these surfaces, parallel incident rays are reflected in one direction only. All these rays would also have the same incident and reflected angles. Diffuse reflection occurs on rough surfaces such as sandpaper and clothing. Parallel incident rays are reflected in all directions, different from those of regular reflection. 

Refraction was a challenge to me. Refraction is the bending effect of light as it passes from one optical medium into another. Light travels at different speeds in different optical mediums. A sudden change in speed of light would cause the path of light to bend. Light refracts away from the normal when light passes into an optical less dense medium and refracts towards the normal when it passes through an optical denser medium. 

At first, I found it very confusing and could not understand why. But after a lot of practices and experiments, I finally got the hang of it and did well. After this term of science lessons, I noticed that physics involves and a lot of calculations and drawings. We have to be precise in our drawings and clearly draw how light travels.