My partner and I were watching National Geographic when Rainbow Mantis Shrimp we’re mentioned and how they could see polarized light.
In: Physics
Light is comprised of photons, a tiny (spatially) packets of energy. They are somehow made up of oscillating magnetic and electric field, one perpendicular to each other and to the direction of light. I can’t say I have a really good visual representation of that myself. If you imagine it like a space ship flying forward, electrical field would oscillate (for example) up-down, while magnetic field would oscillate left-right.
But, there is no UP is space. So, space ships flying together in the same direction can still be oriented in whatever direction axially. So, if you imagine a bunch of space ships moving in the same direction, and they don’t have any ordered formation, this is what unpolarized light looks like. Each photon has arbitrary orientation of electrical field.
Now, imagine that they are flying like they usually are is movies. In a formation, all oriented in the same way. That would be polarized light. While you have a bunch of photons that are completely independent of each other, their electric are oscillating in parallel planes.
It is important not to confuse polarized light with LASER. In laser, all photons have synchronized electrical fields (meaning they oscillate together). With polarized light, they just oscillate in the same direction, but they are not synchronized.
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