preview

The Focal Length of Spherical Mirrors

Best Essays

THE FOCAL LENGTH OF SPHERICAL MIRRORS
Section 1: The Focal length of a concave mirror
Section 2: The focal length of a convex mirror
Done by:
I.D: 201100635
24 Oct. 11

Section 1: To determine the focal length of a Concave Mirror by locating the centre of curvature.
-------------------------------------------------
ABSTRACT:

In this paper we want to discuss the focal point of a concave mirror by locating the centre of curvature. The focal point is a point in space at which light incident towards the mirror and travelling parallel to the principal axis will meet after reflection. The diagram at the right depicts this principle. In fact, if some light from the sun were collected by a concave mirror, then it would converge at the focal …show more content…

In the diagram I have drawn I’ve had to exaggerate the shape of the mirror a bit to be able to use it in some of the diagrams later on, but you should be able to get the basic idea. Like a regular circle, the distance from the centre to the surface of the mirror is the radius.
Focus or Focal Point (F)
If an object was infinitely far away from the mirror, the light from it would converge on this one point. In the diagrams we are doing we will mostly be looking at how some light rays pass through (or appear to pass through) this focal point. The focal point is exactly in between the mirror and the centre. Since the distance between the centre and the mirror is the radius, the distance from the focal point to the mirror is half of the radius.

Principle Axis
The blue line is the principle axis, a line that we will use as a reference point in our diagrams. It passes through the centre and is perpendicular to the surface of the mirror. (White, 1999)
There are two main rules we need to use to figure out where the image of the object will appear. All of the rules involve what a ray will do when leaves the object.
Rule #1: Any ray through the focal point will reflect parallel to the principle axis (Figure 2).
Light reflects off objects at all sorts of angles, and if it will help us to find where an image is, we might as well assume one ray goes right through the focus.

Get Access