The original statement of Fermat's principle was, "The actual path between two points taken by a beam of light is the one which is traversed in the least time." Snell's law and the law of reflection follow directly from this statement. It may be reformulated slightly in terms of optical path length as "Light, in going between two points, traverses the route having the smallest optical path length." In its original form however, Fermat's principle is somewhat incomplete and even slightly in error. Its modern form is "A light ray, in going between two points, must traverse as optical path length which is stationary with respect to variations of the path." In this formulation, the paths may be maxima, minima, or saddle points.

Law of Reflection, Least Action Principle, Snell's Law