Physics Demo Manual

Due to Physics Building renovations, the lead time to set up demo requests has increased due to the need to transport equipment across campus. Please be kind and let me know well ahead of time what you need.

Geometrical Optics  Diffraction  Interference  Color  Polarization   video  - Polarization of Light   video  - Polarization of Microwaves  Polarization by Reflection  Brewster's angle  Optical Activity in Corn Syrup  Birefringence  Polarization by Scattering  The Eye

Brewster's angle Purpose: To demonstrate the Brewster angle at which polarized light is perfect transmitted without reflection. Procedure: Set up a laser, polarizer and glass plate on a short optical bench. The glass plate will reflect and refract portions of the incident light. However, when the light is polarized in the same plane as the incident ray and the surface normal, at a certain angle no reflected beam will be observed. Setup example: you can place a polarizer between laser and glass, set linear polarization to same plane as the glass, rotate the glass until you find minimum (this is Brewster's angle) then remove polarizer from setup. Now you can show that for unpolarized light incident on the glass surface, the reflected light is 100% polarized at Brewster's angle. Hints: One can either use a heavy glass (pivots side to side) and project the reflected light onto the wall/screens or use a microscope slide (pivots up and down) to project on the ceiling.