Refraction as Bending

While colors and rainbows are from micro cohesion of individual photons, the large scale bending of light or collection of photons leads to refraction.

Snell’s Law by Descartes

Descartes independently derived Snell’s law by thinking of light as quantized balls:

His key move was that the light speed and direction was affected by the media that light went through. This led to the principle of least action.

$n_1 \sin\theta_1 = n_2 \sin\theta_2$

In terms of velocities, Snell’s Law is:

$\frac{\sin\theta_1}{\sin\theta_2} = \frac{v_1}{v_2} = \frac{n_2}{n_1}$

Based on the refractive index definition:

$n = \frac{c}{v}$

Descartes Versus Fermat

Fermat interpreted Snell’s law not according to media, but according to the path that the light took. This is consistent with the materalist view that ignores media and relation to surroundings, and focuses instead of the moving object itself.

Material Superphysics takes the non-materialst (spiritual) view and focuses on the media that the object is made of, and the media where it is.

This is best embodied in our Qualimath which replaces Calculus and its paths with the spin of identities in relation to the spin of their media, since everything in Descartes’ Physics is a spinning vortex.