Apparant Depth

Description:

Apparent depth is the depth that a transparent material appears to have when viewed from above. When a ray of light moves from one medium to another there is a change in velocity and direction of ray due to refraction which results in false appearance of depth of the material.

The actual depth that a transparent medium has is known as real depth.

To calculate the apparent depth of any medium let us consider the following figure −

From figure −

If P and Q are close to each other −

QI ≈ PI and OQ ≈ OP

As we know,

Note − Real depth is always greater than apparent depth.

Rise of object − Rise of object is the difference between the real depth and the apparent depth.

OI = OP - PI

We have,

By substituting values we get −

As OP is the real depth, let us denote it by D −

Where,

D = real depth.

μ = Refractive index of medium.