Unit 7. Assignment 1. Refraction, Reflection and Optics
Refraction: The most common real life example used when discussing refraction is a straw in water. When a straw is placed in a glass of water and viewed from the side, it appears to be broken or bent. This is due to the difference in the refractive indices of air and water. Since water is denser than air, the straw appears to bend as the light it reflects is slowed by the density of the water. This phenomenon also makes submerged objects, such as fish look closer to the surface than they actually are.
Another common example is a rainbow, where sunlight is refracted by raindrops. Sunlight consists of a mixture of different wavelengths, or colors, of light, with blue, for example, having a shorter wavelength than red. When this light passes through raindrops, the shorter wavelengths are bent more than the longer ones, splitting the light into its different colors.
Reflection: Pretty much everything you see could be considered reflection. The fact we can see is due to light reflecting off of objects and into our eyes. A good example, I guess, is the moon. When it glows at night that is just light from the sun reflecting onto the Moon's surface, and bouncing back, giving it that glow.
Degradation of signal strength in fiber-optic transmission. The main factors that affect this is number of connectors, splicing, Quality of Fiber / connectors, also not using an Attenuator according to the distance, or using dirty attenuators,