Using your understanding of the way light behaves, you should now be able to demonstrate how some of the optical gadgets work that you examined at the start.
For example:
- Sketch a periscope and show the path of two rays of light coming from a distant tree into your eye so you can see it.
- Examine the camera and make a sketch of the lenses and mirrors involved. Trace the path of a ray of light through a simple camera. Try a reflex camera.
- Show with rays of light why a convex shaped rear vision mirror gives a wide field of view.
- Illustrate how two plane mirrors make a kaleidoscope, and how the rays of light are reflected.
- Investigate the ray diagrams for a telescope and a microscope in a Physics text book. In your own words explain what is happening to the rays and how they are focused.
- Illustrate how a convex lens in a projector can focus the image of a slide on a screen. Why is the slide placed upside down?
- Describe what happens in a set of traffic lights in terms of the colours produced from the white light globes behind the coloured filters.
- Why does a red rose appear red?
- Explain with some ray diagrams why a crystal vase can produce rainbows when it is placed in the Sun.
- Draw rays of light coming from a fish in an aquarium to illustrate why sometimes, when it swims near a corner, you can see two images of the fish.
- Finally revisit the 'Questions to think about' that you looked at in the first lesson of this module. Discuss them again and see if your ideas for some of the answers have changed.
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