Orange curtains are used to cover up part of the graph and polarizer 2. Your goal is to determine the angle of the transmission axis of polarizer 2. Once you have figured it out, set the "polarizer 2" slider to that angle, and check your answer. If you're right, the curtains will be removed. If not, you can try again.

Feel free to use the polarizer 1 and polarizer 3 sliders to adjust the angle of the transmission axes of those polarizers. (Note that the polarizer 2 slider does not adjust the angle of polarizer 2.) The graph shows the intensity of the light at different locations along the x axis.

See how many different ways you can figure out the answer.

Simulation written by Andrew Duffy, and first posted on 3-12-2018.

Creative Commons License
This work by Andrew Duffy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This simulation can be found in the collection at http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/classroom.html.

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