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You're one of the lucky ten thousand today. [1] Following a vertical polarizer with a horizontal polarizer will block all light. But putting a diagonal polariz
by Strilanc 11y ago
You're one of the lucky ten thousand today. [1]
Following a vertical polarizer with a horizontal polarizer will block all light. But putting a diagonal polarizer in between will result in some of the light getting through. You can find videos and explanations of this effect on youtube [2] [3].
1: https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm2LCsM_S5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm2LCsM_S5o
3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM2TkM0hzW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM2TkM0hzW8
- dognotdog 11y agoHah, nice! Looking at it now, of course it makes sense. I guess I just short-circuited by thinking of the polarizer as blocking light only, and not that the reduction in intensity is the result of the projection of the previous wave direction onto the new wave plane! EDIT: not that this makes the quantum effects any clearer ;)