Refraction, the Role of Time, and Snell's law

Index of refraction of medium 1
1.00 2.50
1.00
Index of refraction of medium 2
1.00 2.50
1.50

In the previous simulation, we looked at how light travels in such a way as to minimize the travel time. In this simulation, we look at the connection between the minimization of the travel time and Snell's Law.

It turns out that Snell's law is completely consistent with light taking the minimum time to travel from one point to another.

Simulation first posted on 2-19-2017. Written by Andrew Duffy

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This work by Andrew Duffy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This simulation can be found in the collection at http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/classroom.html.

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