Global illumination
Global illumination refers to techniques that take indirect lighting, such as inter-object reflections, into account when computing the light distribution in a scene.
Simulating real world light distribution is a very complex problem, and as a result early rendering techniques only allowed for local illumination, i.e. direct light arriving at a surface from a primary light source, to be simulated. Global illumination techniques were first introduced to the computer graphics community in the late 70s/early 80s with the introduction of Ray Tracing and Radiosity. These techniques allowed for far higher realism by simulating specular and diffuse inter-object reflections, respectively.
In 1986 the global illumination problem was summarised by James Kajiya in the Rendering Equation. Kajiya also proposed Path Tracing as a method to solve it. While there are numerous global illumination techniques available, Ray Tracing, Radiosity, Path Tracing, and Photon Mapping to mention only a few, they all approximate the same mathematical equation, each with their own particular benefits and drawbacks.
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