Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Wrong Snell's Law

The previous post "Not Snell's Law" dated 03 Jan 2018 is wrong.



Notice the swap \(\lambda_i\leftrightarrow a\).

\(\cfrac{a*sin(\theta_i)+\lambda_i}{cos(\theta_i)}=OC=\cfrac{\lambda_r}{tan(\cfrac{1}{2}\theta_r)}\)

\(\cfrac{\lambda_i}{\lambda_r}\cfrac{\cfrac{a}{\lambda_i}*sin(\theta_i)+1}{cos(\theta_i)}=\cfrac{1}{tan(\cfrac{1}{2}\theta_r)}\)

If \(\cfrac{a}{\lambda_i}\approx 1\) ie a torus with a small hole,

\(\cfrac{\lambda_i}{\lambda_r}\cfrac{sin(\theta_i)+1}{cos(\theta_i)}=\cfrac{1}{tan(\cfrac{1}{2}\theta_r)}\)

which is the same as before. Wrong!