All Textbook Topics - Light - Investigating the law of reflection with a ray box - To measure the angle of the reflected ray, you must use a protractor to measure the angle between the reflected ray and the normal.

To measure the angle of the reflected ray, you must use a protractor to measure the angle between the reflected ray and the normal.

When investigating the law of reflection with a ray box, the final step is to use a protractor to measure the reflected angle and compare this to the incident angle.

It is important to use a protractor to measure the angle of reflection and compare it to, rather than just assume that it is equal to, the incident angle.

As it is a practical investigation, you must verify your results through measurement rather than making assumptions.

You can see below that the measured angle is exactly the same as the incident angle, so the practical has been a success and demonstrates that the law of reflection has held in this investigation:

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To accurately mark the reflected ray, you need to mark small crosses with a sharp pencil in the middle of the reflected ray.
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