Why does the refracted ray bend away from normal on travelling from denser to rarer medium?

Answer 1

When I consider the bending of the ray I always like to refer to Huygens Principle:

I like Huygens Principle because it is simple, easy to understand and gives you a practical way to explain the behaviour of light in interacting with matter.

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Answer 2

Carson Alexander

The refracted ray bends away from the normal when traveling from a denser to a rarer medium due to the change in speed of light. This change in speed causes the light wavefront to change direction, as it enters a medium where it can propagate faster, resulting in the bending of the ray away from the normal. This phenomenon is described by Snell's law, which relates the angles of incidence and refraction to the indices of refraction of the two media.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.