The headlights of a car are 1.5 m apart. Your pupil has a diameter of 5 mm, and

Question

The headlights of a car are 1.5 m apart. Your pupil has a diameter of 5 mm, and the wavelength of the light from the headlights is 600 nm.

A. If the car is 50 m away from you, what is the angle between the headlights?

B. Can you tell whether the car has two headlights or one?

C. What is the maximum distance at which you would still be able to resolve headlights?

D. The pupil of your eye changes size depending on how much light is exposed to. If the diameter of your pupil increades from 5mm to 7mm, would your answer in part (c) get larger or smaller?

Explanation / Answer

A)     Here, Sin = 1.22 / d

=>        Sin = 1.22 * 600 * 10-9 / (5 * 10-3)

=>       Sin =   1.464 * 10-4

=>    the angle between the headlights = 1.464 * 10-4 radians

B)    Yes, it can be tell whether the car has two headlights or one .

C)    maximum distance at which   = 1.5/(1.464 * 10-4)

                                                      = 10.245 km

D)    answer in part (c) get larger   .

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