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### In Fermat's Principle of Least Time, how do we know that light is able to reach the end point? [duplicate]

From my understanding of Fermat's Principle, you decide a start point and an end point for a light ray to travel between, and the light 'chooses' whichever path takes the least time (or technically ...
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### Doubt regarding Fermat's principle [duplicate]

Which two points are we talking about in Fermat's principle? Are those points decided by light or decided by us? Can we take any two points?
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### In the Principle of Least Action, how does a particle know where it will be in the future?

In his book on Classical Mechanics, Prof. Feynman asserts that it just does. But if this is really what happens (& if the Principle of Least Action is more fundamental than Newton's Laws), then ...
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### Question about the apparent loophole in principle of least action

In Lagrangian formalism, given two points $(x_1,t_1)$ and $(x_2,t_2)$, we ask the question which paths $x(t)$ make the action $S=\displaystyle \int_{t_1}^{t_2}L\ \mathrm dt$ stationary and satisfy the ...
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### Maximum aging and path of rock

When a rock falls from a ledge, why does it head to the surface and not up to where time runs faster? If a rock, free from forces, follows a worldline of maximum aging, why would that rock approach ...
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### How can an action be dependent on both its past and future?

Is it true that whenever an action takes place it is dependent on both its past and future? I mean if we already know that whatever we are doing is dependent on future as much as it is dependent on ...
I am citing from Landau and Lifschitz, this statement that will seem to you well-known, trivial, etc: "Between these positions, (i.e. $q_1$ and $q_2$) the system moves then in such a way that the ...
We defined the action as: $$\mathcal{S}(t)=\int_{t_1}^{t_2}\mathcal{L}(q_i,\dot{q_i},t) dt$$ where $q_i(t_1)$ and $q_i(t_2)$ are known and fixed. Hamilton's principle states that the path that is ...