Investigating How the Size of a Shadow Depends on the Angle at Which the Light Hits the Object

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Investigating How the Size of a Shadow Depends on the Angle at Which the Light Hits the Object

Introduction

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The aim of the project is to see which factors affect the size of a

shadow and then to look more closely at one of the factors to see how

exactly it varies the size of a shadow.

Variables that may affect the size of the shadow

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Although, I will investigate how one factor affects the size of a

shadow, there are other factors that could be investigated. Here are

some examples:

1) The distance between the light and the object

From the ray diagrams I can see that as the distance from the object

to the light source is doubled, the length of the shadow decreases. A

distance of 4cm produces a shadow of approximately 1.6-cm. Decreasing

the distance to 2cm(half the distance), the shadow size increases by

one and a half times to produce a shadow of 2.3 cm. The three ray

diagrams together show the increase of the distance between the object

and light source, decreasing the length of the shadow.

2) The distance between the object and the screen

The results from this are opposite varying the previous factor. In

this case the length of the shadow increased as the distance from the

edge of the object to the screen increased. I expected that as the

distance dubled, the length of the shadow would double but according

to the ray diagram that was not the case. The length of the shadow

The results from this are opposite to varying the previous factor. In

this case, the length of the shadow increased as the distance from the

edge of the object to the screen increased. I expected that as the

distance doubled, the length of the shadow would double but according

to the ray diagrams, that was not the case. The length of the shadow

increased by 1.6 times between changing the distance from 2 cm to 4 cm

(ie:doubling the distance).

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