Physics Question #5057
Jack Racklyeft, a 16 year old male from North Sydney asks on July 29, 2010,
How does the temperature of a liquid effect its refractive index?
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The answer
Barry Shell
answered on July 30, 2010
This answer was found at
John Hanson's Refractometry Webpages at the University of Puget Sound. The speed of light in a substance is slower than in a vacuum because as the light passes through the substance it is being absorbed and reemitted by the atoms of the substance. Since the density of a liquid usually decreases with temperature, the speed of light in a liquid will normally increase as the temperature increases. Thus, the index of refraction normally decreases as the temperature increases for a liquid. A table showing the small changes in refractive index for a number of different liquids
is given by Hanson on his site.
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