Willebrord Snellius

Willebrord Snellius, also known as “Willebrord Snel van Royen, born in June 13, 1580 who lived
46 years until his death in October 26,1626, was a Latin-Dutch physicist, astronomer and
mathematician. He was born to Rudolph Snellius and Machteld Cornelisdochter. He studied in
Leiden University, and he later succeeded his father as a professor of mathematics in the same
university he studied in.

His most influential work to this date is the law of

refraction, commonly referred to as Snell’s law. It
is a formula used to describe the relationship
between the angles of incidence and refraction,
when referring to light or other waves passing
through a boundary between two different isotropic
media, such as water, glass, or air.

Detailed Diagram of Snell’s Law

(Abul Khair, 12, 2015)
Snell discovered that a beam of light would bend as it entered a block of glass, and that the
angle of bending was dependent upon the incident angle of the light beam. Light traveling in a
straight line into the glass will not bend but, at an angle, the light is bent to a degree proportional
to the angle of inclination. Then, this became known as the law of reflection.

Snell’s Law has been in use since it’s creation, with one of it’s uses being fiber optics, a
technology developed for telecommunications and high speed data transmission over long
distances, something which requires Snell’s Law since the fibers the light must be guided down
the length of the fiber made out of pure glass, the light bounces through these.