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Plastic Protractor Polarized 05375
2004
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Credit line
- Self-photographed
- Rights
- CC BY-SA 3.0, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
About this work
Tension lines in plastic protractor seen under cross polarized light. When a ray of plane polarised light is passed through a photoelastic material, it gets resolved along the two principal stress directions and each of these components experiences different refractive indices. The difference in the refractive indices leads to a relative phase retardation between the two component waves. The birefringence of the plastic layer shows colored fringes. Also called Photoelasticimetry or photoelasticity. Not seen does not mean No difference.