Light is travelling in quartz, which has an index of refraction of 1.458. How fast does light travel in quartz?

Question

13383 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2018-04-01T14:49:35

Approximately #2.06*10^8# meters per second.

Well, the equation for the refractive index is:

#n=c/v#

#c# is the speed of light in a vacuum

#v# is the speed of light through the medium

And so, we get,

#1.458=(3*10^8 \ "m/s")/v#

#v=(3*10^8 \ "m/s")/(1.458)#

#~~2.06*10^8 \ "m/s"#