At the very end of Wagner's series of operas Ring of the Nibelung, Brünnhilde takes the golden ring from the finger of the dead Siegfried and throws it into the Rhine, where it sinks to the bottom of the river. Assuming that the ring is small enough compared to the depth of the river to be treated as a point and that the Rhine is 10.0 m deep where the ring goes in, what is the area of the largest circle at the surface of the water over which light from the ring could escape from the water?

(II) A piece of material, suspected of being a stolen diamond (n = 2.42) , is submerged in oil of refractive index 1.43 and illuminated by unpolarized light. It is found that the reflected light is completely polarized at an angle of 56°. Is it diamond? Explain.

Light enters a solid pipe made of plastic having an index of refraction of 1.60. The light travels parallel to the upper part of the pipe (Fig. E33.15). You want to cut the face AB so that all the light will reflect back into the pipe after it first strikes that face. What is the largest that u can be if the pipe is in air?

Light enters a solid pipe made of plastic having an index of refraction of 1.60. The light travels parallel to the upper part of the pipe (Fig. E33.15). You want to cut the face AB so that all the light will reflect back into the pipe after it first strikes that face. If the pipe is immersed in water of refractive index 1.33, what is the largest that u can be?

The critical angle for total internal reflection at a liquid–air interface is 42.5°. If a ray of light traveling in the liquid has an angle of incidence at the interface of 35.0°, what angle does the refracted ray in the air make with the normal?

Optical engineers need to know the cone of acceptance of an optical fiber. This is the maximum angle that an entering light ray can make with the axis of the fiber if it is to be guided down the fiber. What is the cone of acceptance of an optical fiber for which the index of refraction of the core is 1.55 while that of the cladding is 1.45? You can model the fiber as a cylinder with a flat entrance face.

The glass core of an optical fiber has an index of refraction 1.60. The index of refraction of the cladding is 1.48. What is the maximum angle a light ray can make with the wall of the core if it is to remain inside the fiber?

The critical angle of a certain piece of plastic in air is θ_C = 35.8°. What is the critical angle of the same plastic if it is immersed in water?

Shown from above in FIGURE P34.54 is one corner of a rectangular box filled with water. A laser beam starts 10 cm from side A of the container and enters the water at position x. You can ignore the thin walls of the container. Find the minimum value of x for which the laser beam passes through side B and emerges into the air.