Physics question about snell's law and angle of deviation

Question

The diagram shows a triangular prism with a ray of light entering side AB and incident on side AC as shown. The refractive index of the material making up the prism is 1.64. Identify quantitatively what happens to the ray of light as it meets side AC.

This is the diagram: http://i63.tinypic.com/zwklrn.png Please help!

Answer 1

When I wrote my previous comments, I did what I warn my students against doing all the time: over-complicating the problem. I was gearing up to do a full angle of deviation of the ray through the prism. But all they ask for is what happens at side AC. And they give you the index of refraction of the glass, and the angle of incidence of the light on side AC. So, despite all the prisms and triangles and deviations, this is basically an application of Snell's law with n1 = 1.64 and theta1 = 35 degrees, and n2 = 1 (for air). Then you can solve for the theta2, the refracted angle in air. I think that is all they are asking for, and just dressing it up in a fancy way to distract from that (which apparently worked on me! :D ).

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any further questions, or more information about the problem.