The picture at the right depicts a highly magnified, microscopic view of the surface of a sheet of paper. Your clothing, the walls of most rooms, most flooring, skin, and even paper are all rough when viewed at the microscopic level. Most objects which reflect light are not smooth at the microscopic level. But quite obviously, mirrors are not the only types of objects which light reflects off of. As such, they offer each individual ray of light the same surface orientation. Mirrors are typically smooth surfaces, even at the microscopic levels. In physics class, the behavior of light is often studied by observing its reflection off of plane (flat) mirrors.
(regardless of the orientation of the surface) Each ray strikes a surface with a different orientation yet each ray reflects in accordance with the law of reflection.
#Specular reflection lyrics series
A series of incident rays and their corresponding reflected rays are depicted in the diagram below. As long as the normal (perpendicular line to the surface) can be drawn at the point of incidence, the angle of incidence can be measured and the direction of the reflected ray can be determined. This predictability concerning the reflection of light is applicable to the reflection of light off of level (horizontal) surfaces, vertical surfaces, angled surfaces, and even curved surfaces.
The light ray will then reflect in such a manner that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection. Once a normal to the surface at the point of incidence is drawn, the angle of incidence can then be determined. It was mentioned earlier in this lesson that light reflects off surfaces in a very predictable manner - in accordance with the law of reflection.
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