Message-Id: <v01540b15af6059583ed4@[192.174.2.173]>
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 09:10:24 -0800
To: pinhole@exploratorium.edu
From: pauld@exploratorium.edu (Paul Doherty)
Subject: Re: Polarizing filters
Hi Peter
Your explanation is correct.
Some additions might be based on the idea that light can be modeled as a
vibration in the electric field that when light is polarized has a
direction:
There is no component of a vertical oscillatiuon in a horizontal direction,
but there is a component of a vertical oscillation along a direction
rotated by 45 degrees. Then this 45 degree rotated polarizer has a
component along a horizontal direction. The interesting thing is that once
light goes through a linear polarizer it has its direction of polarization
alinged with the direction of the polarizer.
One of the tricky bits for students is that this is one of the first things
they encountyer where the order of the operations in important. If the
three different polarizers are A,B and C then the order ABC allows light
through but the orders ACB or BAC do not.
Paul Doherty