• Question: Would the light refraction work with a block of ice instead of a crystal/block of glass?

    Asked by to Kate, Kieren, Rowena, Roy on 19 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Rowena Fletcher-Wood

      Rowena Fletcher-Wood answered on 19 Mar 2014:


      Yes. Important things to consider are the refractive index of the material and any imperfections in it. The refractive index tells us how much light will bend moving through it. If the refractive index of ice is too similar to air, we won’t really obseve the effect. Of course, we know from looking at things through water that it will be more or less different enough.

      If you look at a block of ice you can see white flecks in it which are imperfections. These might be thought of as “edges” which will pertub light interacting at those sites. When Newton was investigating prisms, he spent a lot of time grinding his own lenses because he was very unhappy with the qualities of glass – so if glass can be that much of a problem, ice will be much worse and will give you a lower quality result.

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