When light waves traveling in a transparent medium strike the surface of a second transparent medium, they tend to “bend” in order to follow the path of minimum time. This tendency is called refraction and is described by Snell’s Law of Refraction,

where θ₁, and θ₂ are the magnitudes of the angles shown in the figure, and v₁ and v₂ are the velocities of light in the two media. Use Lagrange multipliers to derive this law using x + y = a.

Transcribed Image Text:

sin 0₁ V₁ sin 0₂ V2