What happens to the intensity of light when it passes through two polarizers aligned at 90 degrees to each other?
Practice Questions
1 question
Q1
What happens to the intensity of light when it passes through two polarizers aligned at 90 degrees to each other?
It doubles
It halves
It becomes zero
It remains the same
When light passes through two polarizers at 90 degrees to each other, the intensity becomes zero because no light can pass through.
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
1 item
Q
Q: What happens to the intensity of light when it passes through two polarizers aligned at 90 degrees to each other?
Solution: When light passes through two polarizers at 90 degrees to each other, the intensity becomes zero because no light can pass through.
Steps: 7
Step 1: Understand what a polarizer is. A polarizer is a filter that allows light waves of a certain orientation to pass through while blocking others.
Step 2: Know that unpolarized light (like sunlight) has waves vibrating in all directions.
Step 3: When unpolarized light hits the first polarizer, it only allows the light waves that are aligned with its orientation to pass through. This reduces the intensity of the light.
Step 4: The light that comes out of the first polarizer is now polarized, meaning it vibrates in one direction only.
Step 5: Now, this polarized light hits the second polarizer, which is oriented at 90 degrees to the first one.
Step 6: Since the light from the first polarizer is vibrating in one direction and the second polarizer is blocking that direction (because they are at 90 degrees), no light can pass through the second polarizer.
Step 7: Therefore, the intensity of the light after passing through both polarizers becomes zero.
