Concave Mirror Lab (Discovery)

AP Physics 2 – Geometric Optics

Name______

Date______Period______

All answers and data must follow the PSI Lab Report Format.

This lab should be done in a dark setting.

Objectives

●Use a concave mirror to form real images

●Use a concave mirror to calculate the focal length

Materials (per team)

●Beam of Light (Instructions are attached to make a ray of light)

●Piece of Paper

●Paper Clip

●Scissors

●Ray Table (Attached)

●Pasco Ray Optics Kit

Guiding Questions:

In what ways will your materials be used to form real images?

Calculate the focal length.
Which concepts/constants apply to this lab?

How does the object distance from the mirror affect the type of image observed?

Is there any specific object distance that can give the image the same size as the object?

Specifically for a concave surface, how will the light ray reflect when the incident ray passes the focal point?

A complete lab report must include:

❏The materials you used and how you used them

❏A detailed procedure describing how to setup the experiment

❏Analysis of the data

❏A conclusion:

❏Summarizing your results

❏Assessing any errors that may have affected your data

❏Discussing how you might improve the experiment and / or describing what further experiments you might like to perform on this subject

Ray Table

Procedure for Creating a Beam of Light:

  1. Place your piece of paper on a table so that the shorter side is facing you as shown below.
  1. Fold the paper into fourths..
  2. Take your scissors and cut ¾ of the way up the paper making a vertical cut on your paper.
  3. Make another vertical cut on your paper as close to the first one as possible so that the cuts are parallel. Rip the thin piece of excess paper.
  4. Take a paperclip and place it on the piece of paper as shown below to hold the two flaps of paper in place as shown below, to create a thin slit.
  1. Shine a bright light from a phone (ex. flashlight application) in the direction of the created slit, playing around with the distance between the slit and the phone as well as the distance between the slit and the mirror. It is possible to produce a beam of light from this method.

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