The perfect demonstration of Snell’s Law doesn’t exi—pic.twitter.com/nv1KgASipt
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It also follows from the fact that light "takes the shortest path". Which is also related to Feynman's cancellation work.
It tells us the exiting angle θ₂ of light , as a function of the incident angle θ₁
Fermat's principle of least time is indeed an astounding fact, as Snell's law can be derived from that as well. I offered the Maxwell explanation since it seems the most well known/fundamental/comprehensible
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Indeed. Just thought I'd throw out a couple of other approaches. My maxim is always "if something can consistently be explained in more than one way, it's worth doing". In math, it becomes "if it can be proven, it's worth proving in more than one way."
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I like that one! May have to quote you in a tweet soon!
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I think that the Fermat derivation may be better known to mathematicians, the Maxwell derivation better known to physicists?
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