I think it's finally time to post the solution to the post problem I posted earlier. The trick is to simply flip the b post upside down. Now, we all know that the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line, and thus the shortest distance from a to b is a straight line. But since ab is a straight line, then theta 1 and theta 2 must be equal by the "opposite angle" theorem (I made it up...don't know what it's called). And that's all, folks!Actually, another cool fact about this is that this actually proves why the angle of incidence always equals the angle of reflection!
2 comments:
Wow, that's really neat, I never realized that last bit.
As a point of interest, it wasn't rigorously proven that the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line until the early 20th century!
That's weird.
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