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Re: REFRACTION - REFLECTION

At 12:54 1/23/98 -0800, you wrote:
... Fermat's principle: it seems to require that
the light have a foreknowledge of the territory ahead, which doesn't seem
to make much sense. Now maybe it is possible to rearrange your world-view
in order to get around this. However, our hypothetical student isn't about
to change their world-view without a lot more instruction.

--
--James McLean


Flying off at a tangent, I recall the sense of wonder when some
researchers generated a viable solver for the traveling salesman
problem simply by invoking local entities which together generate
the desired global results by 'living on' - or 'dying.'

Rather like the way that some hypothetical probability wave can extend
in all directions in order to allow a single electron to take part in
creating a diffraction pattern though a double slit?

Sincerely

brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK