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Unpolarized Light
Unpolarized light is light with a random, time-varying polarization. Natural light, like most other common sources of visible light, produced independently by a large number of atoms or molecules whose emissions are uncorrelated. This term is somewhat inexact, since at any instant of time at one location there is a definite plane of polarization; however, it implies that the polarization changes so quickly in time that it will not be measured or relevant to the outcome of an experiment. Unpolarized light can be produced from the incoherent combination of vertical and horizontal linearly polarized light, or right- and left-handed circularly polarized light. Conversely, the two constituent linearly polarized states of unpolarized light cannot form an interference pattern, even if rotated into alignment ( Fresnel–Arago 3rd law). A so-called ''depolarizer'' acts on a polarized beam to create one in which the polarization varies so rapidly across the beam that it may be ignored ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 terahertz, between the infrared (with longer wavelengths) and the ultraviolet (with shorter wavelengths). In physics, the term "light" may refer more broadly to electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength, whether visible or not. In this sense, gamma rays, X-rays, microwaves and radio waves are also light. The primary properties of light are intensity, propagation direction, frequency or wavelength spectrum and polarization. Its speed in a vacuum, 299 792 458 metres a second (m/s), is one of the fundamental constants of nature. Like all types of electromagnetic radiation, visible light propagates by massless elementary particles called photons that represents the quanta of electromagnetic field, and can be analyzed as both waves and par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matrix (mathematics)
In mathematics, a matrix (plural matrices) is a rectangular array or table of numbers, symbols, or expressions, arranged in rows and columns, which is used to represent a mathematical object or a property of such an object. For example, \begin1 & 9 & -13 \\20 & 5 & -6 \end is a matrix with two rows and three columns. This is often referred to as a "two by three matrix", a "-matrix", or a matrix of dimension . Without further specifications, matrices represent linear maps, and allow explicit computations in linear algebra. Therefore, the study of matrices is a large part of linear algebra, and most properties and operations of abstract linear algebra can be expressed in terms of matrices. For example, matrix multiplication represents composition of linear maps. Not all matrices are related to linear algebra. This is, in particular, the case in graph theory, of incidence matrices, and adjacency matrices. ''This article focuses on matrices related to linear algebra, and, unle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inner Product
In mathematics, an inner product space (or, rarely, a Hausdorff space, Hausdorff pre-Hilbert space) is a real vector space or a complex vector space with an operation (mathematics), operation called an inner product. The inner product of two vectors in the space is a Scalar (mathematics), scalar, often denoted with angle brackets such as in \langle a, b \rangle. Inner products allow formal definitions of intuitive geometric notions, such as lengths, angles, and orthogonality (zero inner product) of vectors. Inner product spaces generalize Euclidean vector spaces, in which the inner product is the dot product or ''scalar product'' of Cartesian coordinates. Inner product spaces of infinite Dimension (vector space), dimension are widely used in functional analysis. Inner product spaces over the Field (mathematics), field of complex numbers are sometimes referred to as unitary spaces. The first usage of the concept of a vector space with an inner product is due to Giuseppe Peano, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poincaré Sphere , in mathematics, an example of a homology sphere
{{Disambiguation ...
Poincaré sphere may refer to: * Poincaré sphere (optics), a graphical tool for visualizing different types of polarized light ** Bloch sphere, a related tool for representing states of a two-level quantum mechanical system * Poincaré homology sphere Poincaré is a French surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Henri Poincaré (1854–1912), French physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science * Henriette Poincaré (1858-1943), wife of Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré * Luci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spherical Coordinates
In mathematics, a spherical coordinate system is a coordinate system for three-dimensional space where the position of a point is specified by three numbers: the ''radial distance'' of that point from a fixed origin, its ''polar angle'' measured from a fixed zenith direction, and the ''azimuthal angle'' of its orthogonal projection on a reference plane that passes through the origin and is orthogonal to the zenith, measured from a fixed reference direction on that plane. It can be seen as the three-dimensional version of the polar coordinate system. The radial distance is also called the ''radius'' or ''radial coordinate''. The polar angle may be called '' colatitude'', ''zenith angle'', '' normal angle'', or ''inclination angle''. When radius is fixed, the two angular coordinates make a coordinate system on the sphere sometimes called spherical polar coordinates. The use of symbols and the order of the coordinates differs among sources and disciplines. This article will us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Gabriel Stokes
Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet, (; 13 August 1819 – 1 February 1903) was an Irish migration to Great Britain, Irish English physicist and mathematician. Born in County Sligo, Ireland, Stokes spent all of his career at the University of Cambridge, where he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 1849 until his death in 1903. As a physicist, Stokes made seminal contributions to fluid mechanics, including the Navier–Stokes equations; and to physical optics, with notable works on Polarization (waves), polarization and fluorescence. As a mathematician, he popularised "Stokes' theorem" in vector calculus and contributed to the theory of asymptotic expansions. Stokes, along with Felix Hoppe-Seyler, first demonstrated the oxygen transport function of hemoglobin and showed color changes produced by aeration of hemoglobin solutions. Stokes was made a baronet by the British monarch in 1889. In 1893 he received the Royal Society's Copley Medal, then the most prestigious ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stokes Parameters
The Stokes parameters are a set of values that describe the polarization state of electromagnetic radiation. They were defined by George Gabriel Stokes in 1852, as a mathematically convenient alternative to the more common description of incoherent or partially polarized radiation in terms of its total intensity (''I''), (fractional) degree of polarization (''p''), and the shape parameters of the polarization ellipse. The effect of an optical system on the polarization of light can be determined by constructing the Stokes vector for the input light and applying Mueller calculus, to obtain the Stokes vector of the light leaving the system. The original Stokes paper was discovered independently by Francis Perrin in 1942 and by Subrahamanyan Chandrasekhar in 1947, who named it as the Stokes parameters. Definitions The relationship of the Stokes parameters ''S''0, ''S''1, ''S''2, ''S''3 to intensity and polarization ellipse parameters is shown in the equations below and the fig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eigenvector
In linear algebra, an eigenvector () or characteristic vector of a linear transformation is a nonzero vector that changes at most by a scalar factor when that linear transformation is applied to it. The corresponding eigenvalue, often denoted by \lambda, is the factor by which the eigenvector is scaled. Geometrically, an eigenvector, corresponding to a real nonzero eigenvalue, points in a direction in which it is stretched by the transformation and the eigenvalue is the factor by which it is stretched. If the eigenvalue is negative, the direction is reversed. Loosely speaking, in a multidimensional vector space, the eigenvector is not rotated. Formal definition If is a linear transformation from a vector space over a field into itself and is a nonzero vector in , then is an eigenvector of if is a scalar multiple of . This can be written as T(\mathbf) = \lambda \mathbf, where is a scalar in , known as the eigenvalue, characteristic value, or characteristic root ass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Idempotent
Idempotence (, ) is the property of certain operation (mathematics), operations in mathematics and computer science whereby they can be applied multiple times without changing the result beyond the initial application. The concept of idempotence arises in a number of places in abstract algebra (in particular, in the theory of projector (linear algebra), projectors and closure operators) and functional programming (in which it is connected to the property of referential transparency). The term was introduced by American mathematician Benjamin Peirce in 1870 in the context of elements of algebras that remain invariant when raised to a positive integer power, and literally means "(the quality of having) the same power", from + ''wikt:potence, potence'' (same + power). Definition An element x of a set S equipped with a binary operator \cdot is said to be ''idempotent'' under \cdot if : . The ''binary operation'' \cdot is said to be ''idempotent'' if : . Examples * In the monoid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emil Wolf
Emil Wolf (July 30, 1922 – June 2, 2018) was a Czech-born American physicist who made advancements in physical optics, including diffraction, coherence properties of optical fields, spectroscopy of partially coherent radiation, and the theory of direct scattering and inverse scattering. He was also the author of numerous other contributions to optics. Life and career Wolf was born into a Jewish family in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He was forced to leave his native country when the Germans invaded. After brief periods in Italy and France (where he worked for the Czech government in exile), he moved to the United Kingdom in 1940. He received his B.Sc. in Mathematics and Physics (1945), and Ph.D. in Mathematics from Bristol University, England, in 1948. Between 1951 and 1954 he worked at the University of Edinburgh with Max Born, writing the famous textbook Principles of Optics now usually known simply as ''Born and Wolf''. After a period on the Faculty of the University of Manchester ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spectral Theorem
In mathematics, particularly linear algebra and functional analysis, a spectral theorem is a result about when a linear operator or matrix (mathematics), matrix can be Diagonalizable matrix, diagonalized (that is, represented as a diagonal matrix in some basis). This is extremely useful because computations involving a diagonalizable matrix can often be reduced to much simpler computations involving the corresponding diagonal matrix. The concept of diagonalization is relatively straightforward for operators on finite-dimensional vector spaces but requires some modification for operators on infinite-dimensional spaces. In general, the spectral theorem identifies a class of linear operators that can be modeled by multiplication operators, which are as simple as one can hope to find. In more abstract language, the spectral theorem is a statement about commutative C*-algebras. See also spectral theory for a historical perspective. Examples of operators to which the spectral theorem appl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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