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| ▲ | MeteorMarc 17 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Fermat's principle is an outcome of constructive interference of waves. It works both for classical and quantummechanical descriptions. E.g. check https://phys.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/University_Physics/U... |
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| ▲ | pava0 17 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > a ray of light has to know where it will ultimately end up before it can choose the direction to begin moving in A ray of light doesn't know or choose because it has no agency, just like an apple doesn't know or decide to fall because of gravity. It's an anthropomorphization. | |
| ▲ | sumitkumar 17 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | True, so the interference is the "computation"(heavy emphasis on quotes) which gives rise to the principle. |
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| ▲ | embedding-shape 17 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > a ray of light has to know where it will ultimately end up before it can choose the direction to begin moving in I'm no physicists, so I guess I'll ask it: Why? Also related, why do some ray of light then "see" a black hole yet decide to head into them anyways, if they saw it before they went in that direction? Seems like a dumb move :) |
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| ▲ | lloeki 17 days ago | parent [-] | | Its future isn't over there because it moves in that direction, instead it moves in that direction because its future lies over there. Relatedly: > [General Relativity] basically says that the reason you are sticking to the floor right now is that the shortest distance between today and tomorrow is through the center of the Earth. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/250800/gr-and-my... |
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