Total Internal Reflection

Real World Example

Imagine you're trying to walk through a crowded room, but when you reach a particularly dense group of people, you're pushed back the way you came. This scenario is similar to total internal reflection, where light, instead of passing through the boundary into a different medium, is reflected back into the original medium. The crowded room is like the boundary of two materials, and just as you get redirected back because you can't get through, the light is reflected back because it can't cross the boundary at a certain angle.