How do different objects affect a laser's intensity?
Intro
I have always wanted to something with lasers and reflection because i've always thought lasers are pretty neat, for my topic i'm exploring how the reflection of the laser off different objects affects the light intensity of the laser. I used a light intensity measure thing to gather my data. The results actually surprised me and it made a pretty interesting and experiment.
Question/Hypothesis
If the different materials affect the laser's intensity then the laser's beam will become less intense because the different materials will not be as reflective as a mirror would be.
Materials
-Mirror
-x3 magnified mirror
-any shiny metal
-clean shiny plastic
-aluminum foil/ or metal object
-metal ruler
-red laser pointer
-measuring tape
Methods
For my experiment I first gathered all the materials I needed. The real first step I did was set up the laser pointer the mirror and the light intensity reader at angles so that it would shine into the light intensity meter, the next thing I did was measure the distance in between each object so if I bumped them I could fix it so my data wasn't affected. The next thing was I began to collect data by shining the laser into different objects (I used highest setting for the intensity reader) this isn't very complicated after this I just wrote down the data I collected.
Results
Mirror
900
knife (metal)
200
ruler
200
lamp (aluminum)
0
metal water bottle
100
mirror 3x
900
This data was read on the highest setting so it was multiplied by 100 so the base data would have two less zeros on them.
Discussion
The results from the experiment were what I expected but they were very interesting to test. The lamp did surprise me having no intensity to the light even though the material was very reflective. The x3 magnified mirror did surprise me, I thought since it was magnified it would make the laser's light more intense but it didn't which was pretty neat. Comparing the results to my hypothesis it followed almost exactly what would happen from this experiment. I use the mirror in this experiment as a control that's why I used it in my hypothesis as a variable. I am able to prove that my hypothesis is correct by looking at my results, the highest light intensity reading I got was from the mirror at 900, when I used other object/materials it was never higher than 500, the other results are shown above this discussion part. I had a few problems with my experiment like with the intensity measurement, my problem was I had to move the intensity reader a little bit to find the spot of most reflection which could have affected the results. I can fix this problem by only using flat objects when doing this experiment so I can just set the intensity reader in one spot. THis experiment turned out very well and i'm glad Could learn about this stuff.
Intro
I have always wanted to something with lasers and reflection because i've always thought lasers are pretty neat, for my topic i'm exploring how the reflection of the laser off different objects affects the light intensity of the laser. I used a light intensity measure thing to gather my data. The results actually surprised me and it made a pretty interesting and experiment.
Question/Hypothesis
If the different materials affect the laser's intensity then the laser's beam will become less intense because the different materials will not be as reflective as a mirror would be.
Materials
-Mirror
-x3 magnified mirror
-any shiny metal
-clean shiny plastic
-aluminum foil/ or metal object
-metal ruler
-red laser pointer
-measuring tape
Methods
For my experiment I first gathered all the materials I needed. The real first step I did was set up the laser pointer the mirror and the light intensity reader at angles so that it would shine into the light intensity meter, the next thing I did was measure the distance in between each object so if I bumped them I could fix it so my data wasn't affected. The next thing was I began to collect data by shining the laser into different objects (I used highest setting for the intensity reader) this isn't very complicated after this I just wrote down the data I collected.
Results
Mirror
900
knife (metal)
200
ruler
200
lamp (aluminum)
0
metal water bottle
100
mirror 3x
900
This data was read on the highest setting so it was multiplied by 100 so the base data would have two less zeros on them.
Discussion
The results from the experiment were what I expected but they were very interesting to test. The lamp did surprise me having no intensity to the light even though the material was very reflective. The x3 magnified mirror did surprise me, I thought since it was magnified it would make the laser's light more intense but it didn't which was pretty neat. Comparing the results to my hypothesis it followed almost exactly what would happen from this experiment. I use the mirror in this experiment as a control that's why I used it in my hypothesis as a variable. I am able to prove that my hypothesis is correct by looking at my results, the highest light intensity reading I got was from the mirror at 900, when I used other object/materials it was never higher than 500, the other results are shown above this discussion part. I had a few problems with my experiment like with the intensity measurement, my problem was I had to move the intensity reader a little bit to find the spot of most reflection which could have affected the results. I can fix this problem by only using flat objects when doing this experiment so I can just set the intensity reader in one spot. THis experiment turned out very well and i'm glad Could learn about this stuff.