What quantity did you change?
Labs / Physics
Ray Optics
Slide the object arrow toward and away from the lens and watch three principal rays bend through it to build the image. Switch between a converging and a diverging lens, change the focal length, and see when the image is real and flipped versus virtual and upright.
Ray Optics
Slide the object arrow toward and away from the lens and watch three principal rays bend through it to build the image. Switch between a converging and a diverging lens, change the focal length, and see when the image is real and flipped versus virtual and upright.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Physics explains how changes in forces, energy, motion, and matter produce results we can measure. This model lets you test one part of that relationship at a time.
Explore
Try the model
do 40.0 cmdi 40.0 cmm -1.00×real, inverted
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- With the converging lens, what happens to the image as you slide the object from far away toward the focal point F?
- Move the object closer than one focal length. Where does the image jump to, and why does it turn upright?
- Place the object exactly at 2F. Why does the image come out the same size as the object?
- Can a diverging lens ever make a real, projectable image — or is it always virtual and shrunk?
- Double the focal length. Does the image move closer to the lens or farther from it?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Name the quantity you changed, the quantity that responded, and the physical rule connecting them. Use a readout or visible change as evidence.
Check
Before you leave
What measurable result changed?
Which physical idea connects them?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.