The refractive index of a material quantifies how much light is bent, or refracted, when entering the material from another medium. It is a dimensionless number that indicates how much slower light travels in the material compared to a vacuum, influencing optical properties like reflection and transmission.
Dispersion refers to the spread of values or data points in a dataset, indicating the extent to which they deviate from the average or mean. It is a crucial statistical measure that helps in understanding the variability, reliability, and consistency of the data being analyzed.
Wavefronts are surfaces over which an oscillatory quantity, such as sound or light, has a constant phase, representing the propagation of waves through a medium. They help in visualizing wave propagation and are crucial in understanding phenomena like reflection, refraction, and diffraction.
Image formation is the process by which a visual representation of an object is created on a medium, such as a screen or film, through the manipulation of light. This process involves the interplay of optical principles, such as reflection, refraction, and diffraction, to accurately capture and display the object's properties.
A virtual image is formed when light rays appear to diverge from a point behind a mirror or lens, but do not actually converge at that point. Unlike real images, virtual images cannot be projected onto a screen as they are formed by the apparent paths of light rays.