The Simple Joys of Optics

Simple fun with polarizers!

I’ve had a set of small polarized films sitting in my office for months. The other day, I finally broke them out and, after some fiddling, it occurred to me that there are plenty of simple experiments that one can do with them!

One of the fun forays is showing the effects of stress-induced birefringence, one of my favorites, as you might recall, or recall again.