Chapter 11.7, Problem 1bT

Hold a second polarizing filter in front of the first, and look at the room lights again.

Describe how the filter affects the light that you see. How does rotating one of the filters with respect to the other affect what you see?

On the basis of your observations, why is it appropriate to use the term filler to describe these piece of apparatus?

How is the behavior of the polarizing filter different from the behavior of colored acetate filters?

You have learned that Light may be thought of as a wave consisting of oscillating electric and magnetic fields. If the electric field in all parts of a light beam oscillates along a single axis, the light beam is said to be linearly polarized, or simply, polarized. For example, the diagram at right represents a polarized light wave moving in the x-direction in which the electric field oscillates only along the y-axis. By convention, the direction along which the electric field oscillates (in this case, the y-direction) is called the direction of polarization of a light beam. If the electric field oscillates in different, random directions within the same light beam, that beam is said to be unpolarized.