Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-2-paper-of-the-university-of-oxford/2014-resit/10/1/solution

Fermat's principle states that the actual ray makes the travel time stationary under small variations of its path with endpoints fixed. Equivalently, for a stationary medium it makes the optical path length stationary. “Stationary” allows minima, maxima, or other stationary paths; it does not require a strict minimum in every optical system.

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