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Snell's law

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

Snell's law

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Relationship between the path taken by a ray of light as it moves from one medium to another and the refractive indices of the two media. Discovered in 1621 by Willebrord Snell (1580 – 1626), the law went unpublished until its mention by Christiaan Huygens. If n1 and n2 represent the indices of refraction of two media, and q1 and q2 are the angles of incidence and refraction that a ray of light makes with the line perpendicular to the boundary (the normal), Snell's law states that n1/n2 = sin q2/sin q1. Because the ratio n1/n2 is a constant for any given wavelength of light, the ratio of the two sines is also a constant for any angle.

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For a list of words related to Snell’s law, see:
  • Optics - Snell’s law: equation relating angle of incidence and index of refraction for ray incident on interface of two media

 
 
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Year 984 (in Science & Technology)
ray tracing
Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer)

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