how is glass reflective and transparent?

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How is glass both able to be reflective and see through. Obviously it is but my brain can’t understand how the light can both pass through to the eyes of the person on the inside as well as reflect off the material and be seen by someone on the outside. Please help me understand. Thanks 🙂

In: Physics

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Only a little bit is reflected. Same way a nice coat of black paint can be shiny and still black.

When light waves enter glass, the electrons in the glass move as a response. This produces a new wave, which ‘adds’ to the original wave moving forward through the glass and slightly weakens it as the waves are opposite. The new wave also travels back, though, as a reflection, which is what we see bouncing off.

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