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The critical angle is the angle where the wave is refracted at 90 degrees.

Using Snell's law, nisinxi=nrsinxr, the two indexes of refraction, and the definition of a critical angle, it's pretty easy to figure out.

Keep in mind that the critical angle ONLY occurs when the wave is travelling from a denser medium to a less dense medium (eg diamond to air) as angles formed when travelling into less dense mediums turn away from the normal, whereas if the opposite were to occur, even with an angle of incidence of 90 degrees, the angle of refraction would be less than 90 (it would turn towards the normal). The denser the medium, the larger its index of refraction value.

knowing this, the equation would look something like:

(larger n)sin(critical angle)=(smaller n)sin(90 degrees)

Where you would input the known values and solve for the critical angle.

Another tip is that sin(90 degrees) is just 1 so you could even just ignore that variable.

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14y ago

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