Answer to Question #294951 in Optics for Chemistry

Question

You can’t see clearly underwater with the naked eye, but you can if you wear a face mask or goggles (with air between your eyes and the mask or goggles). Why is there a difference? Could you instead wear eyeglasses (with water between your eyes and the eyeglasses) in order to see underwater? If so, should the lenses be converging or diverging? Explain.

Answer 1

Answer

According to optics,

There is difference due to the light hits the plastic of the goggles and then through air.

Now the refractive index n value for water is close to eye therefore convergence does not occur in your cornea.

So You could wear eyeglasses,whereby you would need a converging lens that has focal length in water which is equivalent to the focal length of your cornea when not underwater.so we can say that The difference is due to the inequivalent refractive index of water and cornea.