explainthatstuff
Polarized light#6: Birefringence
One last cool activity before I put the polarizing sunglasses away again. This is a simple home demonstration of birefringence (the double refractive index of certain crystals - and, in this case, a stressed plastic CD case). Here's how to do it: 1) Put on your polarizing sunglasses (or hold them in front of your camera). 2) Set your laptop display to be completely white (open a blank word processor page, for example). 3) Hold your crystal or stressed plastic between the laptop and your sunglasses... and, hey presto!
I learned this cool little experiment from a neat tutorial on photoelasticity by the master of photo trickery, Evan Sharboneau, the Photo Extremist.
Our images are published under a Creative Commons Licence (see opposite) and are free for noncommercial use. We also license our images for commercial use. Please contact us directly via our website for more details.
Polarized light#6: Birefringence
One last cool activity before I put the polarizing sunglasses away again. This is a simple home demonstration of birefringence (the double refractive index of certain crystals - and, in this case, a stressed plastic CD case). Here's how to do it: 1) Put on your polarizing sunglasses (or hold them in front of your camera). 2) Set your laptop display to be completely white (open a blank word processor page, for example). 3) Hold your crystal or stressed plastic between the laptop and your sunglasses... and, hey presto!
I learned this cool little experiment from a neat tutorial on photoelasticity by the master of photo trickery, Evan Sharboneau, the Photo Extremist.
Our images are published under a Creative Commons Licence (see opposite) and are free for noncommercial use. We also license our images for commercial use. Please contact us directly via our website for more details.