Have you ever thought about the way that a rainbow is formed after a rain, or have you ever wondered why the stars shine so bright in the night? The solution is in the NCERT Class 10 Science Chapter 10 Notes - Human Eye and Colourful World. The chapter describes some interesting things about nature, like the scattering of light, the formation of rainbows, the distribution of sunlight, the blue colour of the sky and the red sunsets and the structure and workings of the human eye.
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One of the most critical and scoring chapters in CBSE Class 10 Board Exams and competitive exams such as NSO, NTSE and NSEJS is Chapter 10. The Class 10 Science Chapter 10 Human Eye and Colourful World Notes are created by expert teachers according to the latest CBSE syllabus. These NCERT notes Class 10 Science Chapter 10 Human Eye and Colourful World have straightforward, but detailed descriptions of important concepts including the mechanism of the human eye, power of accommodation and eye defects (myopia, hypermetropia, presbyopia) and how it is corrected with a lens or a prism, the scattering of white light and scattering of light which explains real world phenomena like twinkling of stars and colour of the sky. These NCERT notes Class 10 Science Chapter 10 Human Eye and Colourful World are written in simple language that students can understand, and they are also easy to revise and provide a clear understanding of concepts and get ready to take exams. These NCERT notes can be used as a full revision manual to enhance your ideas and improve your grades.
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Class 10 Science Chapter 10 Human Eye and Colourful World Notes PDF are very clear and concise in giving an account of all the key issues, including the structure of the human eye, defects in vision, refraction of a prism, dispersion of light, scattering and natural phenomena like rainbows and twinkling of stars. Ready according to the most recent CBSE syllabus, this PDF is ideal to have quick revision and board exam preparation.
The Chapter 10 Notes of NCERT Class 10 Science Chapter 10 Human Eye and Colourful World explains the working of the human eye and the reasons why we can see different natural optical phenomena in our surroundings. These Human Eye and Colourful World Class 10 Science Chapter 10 CBSE notes make important things easier, such as eye accommodation, eye defects, light dispersion, and rainbows creation. They are made to be easy and fast to revise, thus enabling the students to study well and achieve good grades. They can be used particularly in preparing for board and competitive examinations.

The focal length of the lens in the eye can be decreased or increased. The eye lens gets thin when muscles are relaxed. This results in increased focal length. It helps to see distant objects. And when the eye lens becomes thick, the focal length is decreased, and we see nearby objects.
The power of accommodation is the ability of the eye lens to adjust the focal length.
The near Point of the Eye is at 25 cm, and the Far Point of the Eye is infinity.
In old age, the lens becomes milky and cloudy, which is called a Cataract. This leads to complete or partial loss of vision.
The three common defects of vision are:
Myopia (Nearsightedness): In this, distant objects cannot be seen clearly, but nearby objects are visible.

Light from a far object forms an image before it reaches the retina.

Corrected using a concave lens.

Hypermetropia (Far-sightedness): Nearby objects are seen clearly, whereas distant objects can not be seen clearly.

An image of a nearby object is formed behind the retina.

Corrected using a convex lens.

Presbyopia: The power of accommodation decreases with ageing. They have difficulty with near vision as well as far vision. Bifocal lenses are used to correct the defects.
A glass prism is a refracting medium with two or more non-parallel refracting surfaces. It is named according to the shape of its base. The prism shown below is a triangular prism which has two triangular bases and three rectangular lateral surfaces. For a triangular glass prism, the angle between the non-parallel (lateral) refracting surfaces is known as the angle of the prism, denoted by

When light passes through a prism as shown in the figure below, it gets deviated, and the angle between the emergent ray and the incident ray is called the angle of deviation (

When light falls on the prism, the prism splits the incident light into a band of seven colours. The colours observed are VIBGYOR (Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red). The band of colour is Spectrum. Thus, the splitting of incident light into different colours is Dispersion. The splitting is because of the bending of light rays at different angles. Violet light bends the most, whereas red light bends the least.

1 more prism is placed in an inverted position to get back the white light

The phenomenon of a rainbow is also due to the dispersion of light.

With height, the layers of the atmosphere change, so does its optical density; hence, light entering the Earth's atmosphere undergoes refraction continuously. The refraction of light by the Earth's atmosphere is termed atmospheric refraction. Now, let us see a few phenomena occurring in nature due to the atmospheric refraction of light.
When a star is lit in the atmosphere, it has to undergo refraction. The refractive index changes, and the light bends towards the normal. As a result, the actual position of the star is a little bit different from its apparent position. We also know that the atmosphere of the Earth is not stationary, so changes in the apparent position of the stars occur. Thus, we see them twinkling in the sky or the Earth’s atmosphere.
Due to the phenomenon of atmospheric refraction, the sun is visible 2 minutes before the actual sunrise, which is known as advanced sunlight. Just like the sunrise, the Sun is also visible 2 minutes after the actual sunset has taken place. This is known as Delayed Sunset.
When sunlight falls on a mixture of minute particles (like smoke, tiny water droplets, suspended particles of dust and molecules of air in the earth's atmosphere), it gets scattered in all directions if the size of the particle is comparable to the wavelength of light. These particles are more effective in scattering light of shorter wavelength at the blue end than light of longer wavelength at the red end.
When a beam of light strikes tiny water droplets and suspended particles of dust, the path of the beam becomes visible. This is the Tyndall Effect. Fine particles scatter, and particles of larger size scatter light of longer wavelengths.
The colour of the sky appears blue because of the scattering of light. When the sunlight passes through the atmosphere, the fine particles present in the air will scatter the blue colour since it has a shorter wavelength.

When the Sun rises and sets, its light, which is present near the horizon, passes through thicker layers of atmosphere and travels larger distances before reaching our eyes. When the light of the Sun present overhead travels a comparatively shorter distance than light from the horizon, it results in the white appearance of the sun. Near the horizon, most of the blue light and shorter wavelengths are scattered by the particles. Therefore, the red light that reaches our eyes has the longest wavelength, hence the sky appears reddish.
To master Class 10 Science Chapter 10, one needs to have a good grasp of the functioning of the human eye and optical phenomena that colour the world we live in. This chapter relates actual life observations, such as rainbows, blue skies, and twinkling stars, with scientific concepts. Through a proper study plan, concentrated concept building and practice, students can achieve full marks in this high-weightage chapter.
Human Eye and Colourful World Class 10 Science Chapter 10 CBSE notes are necessary to learn the operation of the eye and the reason why we see such beautiful phenomena as a rainbow, blue sky, and twinkling stars. The complex concepts like dispersion, scattering of light and eye defects become easy to learn as well as to revise in these Human Eye and Colourful World Class 10 Science notes. They enable students to develop excellent conceptual clarity and are very helpful in the CBSE board exam and other competitive exams.
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Get line-by-line and well-organised notes of all chapters of Physics, Chemistry and Biology according to the new NCERT Class 10 Physics, Chemistry and Biology textbook. The following notes will give major ideas, formulae, illustrations and other important explanations to enable the students to revise quickly and prepare to take the CBSE board exams.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
It is the capability of the eye lens to change the focal length in such a way that it can be in a position to focus the keen eye on nearby and distant objects clearly on the retina.
Simple convex and concave lenses are not useful in the correction of astigmatism; cylindrical lenses are needed.
The formation of a rainbow is a result of a combination of refraction, dispersion and total internal reflection of sunlight on the droplets in water.
Scattering of light by various particles in the atmosphere causes shorter wavelengths (blue) to scatter as compared to longer wavelengths (red).
Always:
Compare the retina and the eye lens.
Show the image whether it is in front of or behind the retina.
Indicate with arrows the correction with the appropriate lens.
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