Incident light

Incident light refers to light that is travelling towards an object or medium.

  • Incident light may come from the Sun, an artificial source or may have already been reflected off another surface, such as a mirror.
  • When incident light strikes a surface or object, it may be absorbed, reflected, refracted, transmitted or undergo any combination of these optical effects.
  • Incident light is typically represented on a ray diagram as a straight line with an arrow to indicate its direction of propagation.
  • A ray diagram is a diagram that uses lines and arrows to represent the path of light, and labels to indicate the angles, directions, and other optical properties of the light.
  • Incident light is an important concept in optics and is used in various fields, including photography, astronomy, and physics.

Summary