Question

Define the term, “refractive index” of a medium. Verify Snell’s law of refraction when a plane wavefront is propagating from a denser to a rarer medium. Solution 

Answer 1

The factor by which speed of light gets reduced with respect to the “speed of light in vacuum” is said to be the refractive index for the medium. 

`μ = c/ν or ν = c/mu`

Here v is the speed of light in the medium, c is the speed of light in vacuum and μ is the defined refractive index for the medium.