Spoon in water...?

Question

can u help me wid my science homewrk pls? i hav to put a spoon (or fork or something) into a glass of water and then draw it. then i have to explain what happens in terms of refraction. i can see the spoon looks kind of broken, but how do i explain this with light rays? thanks.

Answer 1

light gets refracted when passing from one medium to another, in this case air and water.   check out the first answer as i'll only be repeating the facts (probably quite poorly).  it's all to do with the speed of light (which changes through different substances) and the refractive index of those substances.

and this is worth a look.....

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/...

Answer 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refraction

Answer 3

Does it look as if the shaft of the spoon bends just where it goes into the liquid?Think about a line from your eye to the tip of the spoon,.Suppose that instead of a spoon it is a fish you want to catch for dinner and you are looking down into the water from the bank:what point would you have to aim at with your spear?