You might have seen some of the popular 3-D movies like “Chota Chetan”. Wow! That guy jumped right out of the screen! How did they make those 3-D effects? If you tried to remove your viewing glasses, you probably were disappointed. The movie looked out of focus. Actually, there were two movies which were projected onto the same screen. The eyeglasses contained polarizing lenses. These special lenses separated the overlapping movies and sent a different image to each eye. Your brain did the rest and produced the illusion of 3D.
Things Required:
Two pairs of polarizing sunglasses (not just any sunglasses-the lenses must be made of polarizing material)
Directions:
Close one eye. Use your open eye to look through a polarizing lens. What do you see? Is it a slightly darkened world?
Now hold up the second lens right behind the first. Look through both lenses. What do you see now?
Slowly, rotate one of the lenses. What happens to your view? Can you rotate one lens so that no light may pass through your eyes?
This Is What Happens:
Make a “thumbs up” sign with your hand. Now extend the index finger of this hand. Your index finger represents the direction that the light ray travels. Your thumb points to the direction at which this light wave vibrates.
Rotate your wrist. Notice how the ray still travels in the same direction. However, the vibrations project in all directions along this circular path. The thumb’s side-to-side waves can be cut out using polarizing filters. A polarizing filter can limit the vibrations to mostly one plane. This cuts down on the transmitted light.
When two filters are used, you can do even more. When the filters are positioned so that one may knock out up-and-down vibrations while the other may cut out side-to-side vibrations, no light is transmitted.
