33. Geometric Optics

Diamond has a refractive index of 2.42. How fast would a light ray travel through a diamond?

You turn on one laser in air and shine a second laser through a glass block. How much farther does the light travel in air compared to light traveling in the glass over a period of 2 nanoseconds?

Ramon has contact lenses with the prescription +2.0 D. What eye condition does Ramon have?

Microwaves with a frequency of 10.5 GHz are aimed downward into a flat-bottomed beaker that contains sunflower oil. A microwave detector above the beaker finds that there are strong reflections when the oil depth is 2.76 cm and 3.68 cm but at no depths in between. What is the index of refraction of sunflower oil at microwave frequencies?

Engineers are testing a new thin-film coating whose index of refraction is less than that of glass. They deposit a 560-nm-thick layer on glass, then shine lasers on it. A red laser with a wavelength of 640 nm has no reflection at all, but a violet laser with a wavelength of 400 nm has a maximum reflection. How the coating behaves at other wavelengths is unknown. What is the coating’s index of refraction?

What is the minimum possible value for the index of refraction $n$ of a material?

In optics, what does the symbol $n$ typically represent?