Please explain how polarisation of waves occurs?

Electromagnetic waves can be imagined by a sinusoidal wave moving up and down, with this movement perpendicular to the direction that they are travelling in. Imagine a sea wave, it moves up and down but also forwards. When electromagnetic waves are produced in the real world, different waves will move up and down in different directions, even if they're moving forward in the same direction. Imagine lots of light waves moving into the page, and their sine waves form a circle around the point of light. Polarisation is when only a small selection of direction is allowed. So a polarising filter will block all directions of the circle except a few.

TM
Answered by Tom M. Physics tutor

1617 Views

See similar Physics A Level tutors

Related Physics A Level answers

All answers ▸

Explain the forces involved in a pendulum set up.


Resolving the forces for an object suspended on two strings.


Can a projectile of speed 10m/s at an angle of 45° to the horizontal following a path perpendicular to a wall 8m away and 6m high reach beyond the wall? Justify your answer. Take g as 10m/s/s


How many fission event occur per second if a Uranium 235 Nuclear Reactor outputs 210MW of energy? Average Binding Energy per Nucleon of Uranium 235- 7.6 MeV Average Binding Energy per Nucleon of Products-8.5 MeV


We're here to help

contact us iconContact ustelephone icon+44 (0) 203 773 6020
Facebook logoInstagram logoLinkedIn logo

© MyTutorWeb Ltd 2013–2025

Terms & Conditions|Privacy Policy
Cookie Preferences