1. An electromagnetic wave is horizontally polarized. How many polaroids do you

Question

1. An electromagnetic wave is horizontally polarized. How many polaroids do you need to convert this horizontally polarized light into vertically polarized light? Answer: 2 **why isn't it 1? and what's the relationship with intensity? 11. Which of the following electromagnetic waves are polarized? (a) light emitted by a bulb (b) laser-light (c) sunlight (d) sunlight scattered off molecules in the sky (e) radio waves emitted by a dipole antenna Answer: b,d,e ** why isn't it A or C? and what's the characteristics of b,d,e that makes these EM waves polarized??

Explanation / Answer

I= Io cos^2 x x = angle between the polarizers. if only one polarizers is used, the angle must be 90 and the final intensity becomes zero. Direct sunlight is not polarized. Well, if you use high-resolution telescopes and measure polarization around sunspots, etc., you can do a lot of interesting science, but the polarization of the overall sunlight is negligible. The blue light from the sky, on the other hand, is light scattered by the air - mostly oxygen molecules, IIRC. This is Rayleigh scattering, and the scattered light is very strongly polarized.

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