The laws of reflection

 1. The laws of reflection and refraction are true for all surfaces and pairs of media at the point of the incidence. 

2. The real image of an object placed between f and 2f from a convex lens can be seen on a screen placed at the image location. If the screen is removed, is the image still there? This question puzzles many, because it is difficult to reconcile ourselves with an image suspended in air without a screen. But the image does exist. Rays from a given point on the object are converging to an image point in space and diverging away. The screen simply diffuses these rays, some of which reach our eye and we see the image. This can be seen by the images formed in air during a laser show. 

3. Image formation needs regular reflection/refraction. In principle, all rays from a given point should reach the same image point. This is why you do not see your image by an irregular reflecting object, say the page of a book.

 4. Thick lenses give coloured images due to dispersion. The variety in colour of objects we see around us is due to the constituent colours of the light incident on them. A monochromatic light may produce an entirely different perception about the colours on an object as seen in white light. 

5. For a simple microscope, the angular size of the object equals the angular size of the image. Yet it offers magnification because we can keep the small object much closer to the eye than 25 cm and hence have it subtend a large angle. The image is at 25 cm which we can see. Without the microscope, you would need to keep the small object at 25 cm which would subtend a very small angle.

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