One interesting consequence of the law of refraction is associated with light passing into a medium with a lower index of refraction. As previously mentioned, in this case light rays are bent away from the normal of the interface between the media. At what is called the critical angle of incidence (Θ), the refracted rays make an angle of 90° with the normal—in other words, they just skim the boundary of the two media. The sine of the critical angle is easily derived from the law of refraction: sin Θ = n₂/n₁.

For any incident angle greater than the critical angle, light rays are completely reflected inside the material. This phenomenon, called total internal reflection, is commonly taken advantage of to “pipe” light in a curved path. When light is directed down a narrow fibre of glass or plastic, the light repeatedly reflects off the fibre-air interface at a large incident angle—larger than the critical angle (for a glass-air interface the critical angle is about 42°). Optical fibres with diameters from 10 to 50 micrometres can transmit light over long distances with little loss of intensity (see fibre optics). Optical communications uses sequences of light pulses to transmit information through an optical fibre network. Medical instruments such as endoscopes rely on the total internal reflection of light through an optical fibre bundle to image internal organs.

Dispersion

Through his careful investigation of the refraction of white light as it passed through a glass prism, Newton was famously credited with the discovery that white light consists of a spectrum of colours. The dispersion of white light into its constituent colours is caused by a variation of the index of refraction of glass with colour. This effect, known as chromatic dispersion, results from the fact that the speed of light in glass depends on the wavelength of the light. The speed slightly decreases with decreasing wavelength; this means that the index of refraction, which is inversely proportional to the speed, slightly increases with decreasing wavelength. For glass, the index of refraction for red light (the longest visible wavelength) is about 1 percent less than that for violet light (the shortest visible wavelength).

The focusing properties of glass lenses, being determined by their indices of refraction, are slightly dependent on colour. When a single lens images a distant white-light point source, such as a star, the image is slightly distorted because of dispersion in the lens; this effect is called chromatic aberration. In an effort to improve upon the chromatic aberration of the refracting telescope, Isaac Newton invented the reflecting telescope, in which the imaging and magnification are accomplished with mirrors.

Dispersion is not restricted to glass; all transparent media exhibit some dispersion. Many beautiful optical effects are explained by the phenomena of dispersion, refraction, and reflection. Principal among them is the rainbow, for which René Descartes and Newton are credited with the first solid quantitative analyses. A rainbow is formed when sunlight is refracted by spherical water droplets in the atmosphere; two refractions and one reflection, combined with the chromatic dispersion of water, produce the primary arcs of colour. The laws of geometrical optics also explain the formation of mirages and halos and the rarely observed “green flash” of a setting Sun.

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The rules of geometrical optics, developed through centuries of observation, can be derived from the classical electromagnetic-wave model of light. However, as long as the physical dimensions of the objects that light encounters (and the apertures through which it passes) are significantly greater than the wavelength of the electromagnetic wave, there is no need for the mathematical formalism of the wave model. In those circumstances, light is adequately modeled as a collection of rays following the rules of geometrical optics. Most everyday optical phenomena can be handled within this approximation, since the wavelengths of visible light are relatively short (400 to 700 nm). However, as the dimensions of objects and apertures approach the wavelength of light, the wave character of light cannot be disregarded. Many optical effects, often subtle in nature, cannot be understood without a wave model. For example, on close inspection the shadows of objects in parallel light are seen not to be infinitely sharp. This is a consequence of the “bending” of waves around corners—a phenomenon best explained by the wave model. Another class of phenomena involves the polarization of light waves. These issues are addressed below.