and directly affecting the angle is bad bc it's by unpredictable refraction

we have a formula for that

yes, any time the rays start unparallel

snells law

do you?

no

nell's law 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.

snell's law is for refraction at a boundary

nsintheta

but any rays that start slightly non-parallel (the thing we're testing with the wells)

will have their divergence affected by refraction

i mean of course...they start at a point and have to reach different wells

that are miles apart

so rays from a point will diverge across miles

if that were true then putting wells inches apart should give different angles

and on the way to each well, refraction will affect them differently

where do you get inches? i never gave any numbers

just an assumption

we should get shadows that are flipped

since divergent rays are at play

i'm confused, divergent rays are always at play

they have to be divergent in order to originate from a point sun and reach two wells

that little ms paint drawing you made

you only pretend they aren't when you pretend the sun's rays are entirely parallel

ye

that would cause divergent rays too

it would affect the divergence is more what i should say

all rays that aren't from an infinite sun and parallel, are divergent

also i couldd see your point that, if you can say they're roughly parallel

https://kpharri.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/the-suns-rays-are-parallel/

then you could say their divergence could be roughly unaffected at one point

that's fine, until the fact that the wells are separated

so it's different portions of atmosphere, each which can refract differently

so the result is still unpredictable

yeah, that link is pretending that the sun's rays are parallel

like, you can see from his diagrams that they aren't

but that, you know, close enough

but ye if we're being honest about the physics

the issue is that the rays will travel through 2 different parts of the atmosphere

so parallel or not, they'll get refracted differently just bc it's 2 separate bits of atmosphere

and that can affect divergence and everything else and put it all out of whack