Rippled Reflection
Safety Warnings
Warning: Water and Electrical Safety
Purpose
Students observe how rippled water transforms the reflection of a point light source into a vertical pillar of light, demonstrating that the law of reflection applies locally at each surface element and that varying surface normals produce distorted images.
Figure 1:
Rippled water transforms the point reflection of the lamp into a vertical pillar of light, viewed looking across the tank toward the source.
Figure 2:
With a different ripple pattern, the reflected light streak changes shape. The vertical extent depends on the wave amplitude.