<p>Actually it might be considered physics but I see it as maths and I don't know where to ask so I'm going to ask here since this subforum of cc is basically my home forum here ahha </p>
<p>I need help deriving Snells Law </p>
<p>I have a diagram but you wont need it (however if you do I may be able to find it online because its commonplace for snells law) because I have already formulated the necessary equations based on it, </p>
<p>heres what I have so far, (if only we have LaTeX ;P, since we dont this may look a little confusing) </p>
<p>f(alpha, beta) = a/ (v1<em>cos(alpha)) + b/(v2</em>cos(beta))
and a second function
f(alpha, beta) = a<em>tan(alpha) + b</em>tan(beta) - c</p>
<p>of course we should take note a<em>tan(alpha) +b</em>tan(beta) = c </p>
<p>I should be able to use Lagrange's method to solve this ( and the answer is clearly sin(alpha)/sin(beta) = v1/v2 ) but I simply can't do it for some reason, anyone want to enlighten me on what i may possibly be doing wrong? </p>
<p>and also sorry again for the hideous way these equations look, thats what you get for not having LaTeX CC ! >=O haha</p>