Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Blog 13

In places such as Las Vegas, light shows are extremely common.  However, as we learned in the video that Mrs. Provencio showed us, water shows such as the ones at the Belagio are very special.  The spouts of light that are shot up from the water cannons are also illuminated with lights, however, the light only appears within the tube of water, and not in any other surface.  After this chapter in physics, I discovered that this is possible due to the principles of total internal reflection.  The refractive index of air is lower that that of water, therefore, when the light is shot through the tube of water, the light continuously reflects through the length of the water, not exiting the tube of water at all.