I’ve had like 12 people explain this to me and have absolutely no idea what polarized glasses are or why they’re so special.
In: Engineering
Light from the sun is unpolarized. When it reflects off of horizontal surfaces it becomes polarized, meaning that all the light waves are oscillating in the same plane. That part is important, but probably beyond the scope of ELI5.
Because the light is polarized, you can use a special filter in the form of a coating to reduce the amount of reflected light that comes through your sunglasses. This is called a polarizing filter, and these types of sunglasses are referred to as “polarized sunglasses”.
Non-polarized sunglasses reduce the amount of light coming through them, but they do it by blocking a percentage of *all* light via tinting. Tinting has a tradeoff in that it reduces brightness but also makes it harder to see as you increase the amount of tint.
Polarized sunglasses can reduce the amount of ambient light by using tint, and then further reduce *specifically* reflected light (glare) by using the polarizing filter. This allows you to use less tint since you’re able to target only the brightest reflection sources with the polarizing filter, which allows clearer vision overall.
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