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Re: Total Internal Reflection



On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 15:44:04 -0500 Wolfgang Rueckner
<rueckner@FAS.HARVARD.EDU> writes:
One would think a HS teacher should be happy. We know it happens
and we can solve problems about it happening but I cannot
answer the very curious student (me included) who wants a
deeper understanding, a mechanism for this happening.

***
Sometimes the simplest things are the most difficult to "understand".
For example:

1. A transverse wave is traveling from east to west in a unifom medium.
Why does it keep going in the same direction instead of suddenly changing
or reversing its direction?

2. Why does a wave change its speed and sometimes even its direction
when the impedance of the medium changes?

3. Why does the speed of a wave change when the temperature of the medium
increases?

4. Why does a particle at the surface of a water wave describe
an elongated ellipse while particles below the surface move in more
circulat
patterns?

Herb Gottlieb from New York City
(Where the movement of my funds is never in a straight line).