Characteristics of Refraction

Three general characteristics of refraction: (a) light passing from a rarer medium into a denser one deviates towards the normal in the denser medium; (b) light passing from a denser medium into a rarer one deviates away from the normal in the rarer medium; (c) at any refracting surface, some reflection always takes place simultaneously alongside the refraction -- the phenomenon where part of an incident beam undergoes reflection and the rest undergoes refraction at the same surface is called simultaneous reflection and refraction, so the refracted (transmitted) beam is always somewhat dimmer than the original incident beam, since some of its intensity is diverted into the reflected beam instead. Surfaces specially …