Why does polarizing light reduce glare?
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Polarizing light doesn’t reduce glare.
Polarized light IS the glare. When light hits a surface like water and bounces back up at you, it is Polarized, making it appear much brighter as the glare.
Polarized sunglasses have special chemical film that blocks out polarized light. Which then reduces glare.
Light hits a surface and scatters a portion of that light comes into your eye at different angles. Imagine light waves coming at you and some are up and down, some are side to side, some are diagonal and some at all other angles.
Polarized lenses only allows light to pass at certain angles (usually one direction like up and down) so less total light hits your eyes and there is less glare.
You can test this by putting on Polarized glasses and tilting your head. The “glare” changes as different light makes it through. Also by holding 2 Polarized lenses in front of each other and turning one the light will darken as less light passes though both lenses. At right angles to each other that drops to almost zero and they seem opaque.
Most of the light that causes glare is horizontally polarized. Glasses that are vertically polarized will block out all of that horizontally polarized light. If you turn your head sideways, you’ll notice the further sideways you go, the less effective the glasses become.
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