The h Bar

0celoñe7

00:12

@ACuriousMind Look, I don't say doubt to make fun of Indians

my inner mathematical monologue is with an Indian accent

sometimes it just gets out

I also sometimes think in Scottish or California girl

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 I'm vaguely around if it's urgent

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty I've decided to explore a Matlab solution instead.

I already know the language so writing a code will be much easier.

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 a'ight

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty Actually, is there a way to manually adjust the step size in NDSolve?

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 hmmm, good question

0celoñe7

00:22

I don't really care about processor time, I've got a very good CPU.

Emilio Pisanty

you can't control the actual step size

0celoñe7

And I broke the kernel again.

Emilio Pisanty

but you can control the MaxStepSize

and also the StartingStepSize

but the step size is chosen depending on the Method

so you can't control it further

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty Oh, so I can make it, say, 1E-8?

How do I do that?

If the max step size is small, then that's all I need.

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 just set MaxStepSize->10^(-8)

0celoñe7

00:24

Right now I fear the step size is smaller than the distance between the singularity and where I am putting the initial condition.

Er, larger.

Emilio Pisanty

possibly relevant

8

Q: What are the Wolfram Mathematica NDSolve function methods?

What are the Wolfram Mathematica NDSolve function methods? I know that in Wolfram Mathematica I can specify solving method in NDSolve function, but I can't find a full list of available methods in documentation.

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty Where do the "options" go, syntactically speaking?

Emilio Pisanty

@Kaumudi.H it's also noteworthy that I saw that message on the star board and had a pretty good idea who you were talking to

@0celoñe7 just before the ] that closes up the NDSolve[

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty cool

@Slereah Preferred notation for the double of a manifold?

$DM$?

Emilio Pisanty

$2M$

0celoñe7

00:33

@EmilioPisanty why

since when are you a topologer

Emilio Pisanty

I'm not

no idea what the "double of a manifold" is

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty Take a manifold with boundary, then glue it to another copy of itself along the boundary.

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 ¯\ _(ツ)_/¯

0celoñe7

Works great for certain constructions that need a "whole manifold" but you don't care about what happens at the boundary.

@EmilioPisanty Why the face?

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 I was just at the Festa Major of my barrio

draw your own conclusions

vzn

01:26

@DanielSank hi (oops my ipad battery died & took off). fyi did you see this? Mostafa found it... they are talking about "deterministic CNOT gates"... wonder what you think of it... EP is not impressed lol nature.com/nature/journal/v541/n7638/full/nature21037.html

0celoñe7

03:19

@EmilioPisanty hmm

The Raiders of Las Vegas

03:34

(removed)

Avantgarde

(removed)

Yashas

(removed)

The Raiders of Las Vegas

(r(e(m(o)v)e)d)

Avantgarde

$r^{e^{m^{o^{v^{e^{d}}}}}}$

The Raiders of Las Vegas

I surrender.

Avantgarde

03:37

Give me all your gold and physics textbooks

3

The Raiders of Las Vegas

Bad idea #271: Dropping into the half-pipe on a Segway.

Avantgarde

I should go through xkcd sometimes

Secret

$${\Huge \mathcal{D}_{E_{V_{O_{M_{E_\Bbb{R}}}}}}}$$

Avantgarde

haha, this is what you were doing all this while

That's some pretty good Latex skills

Secret

well, not really, I was doing my painful literature review because it is so hard to focus on reading articles, but I must do that as otherwise I have no idea what the data I have collected so far is trying to tell me

Avantgarde

03:44

Review on?

Secret

(Not to mention the research proposal is due on August...)

the organometallics stuff my research is on (chemistry)

Avantgarde

Oh nice. I've heard about that before. Good luck with the proposal submission

user228700

06:24

@Balarka: Dunkirk is f*ing majestic.

John Rennie

Ah, you liked it then? :-)

Sid

@Kaumudi.H It's good old Chris's movie. Of course it is majestic..

user228700

@JohnRennie Are you kidding me? I absolutely loved it.

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H a good way to spend a Sunday morning then :-)

I'm spending my Sunday morning staring at the rain and fixing servers ...

user228700

:-/ Sorry.

user228700

06:38

@JohnRennie Yes. I was so completely blown away and enthralled that I walked back home (~2 Kms) under the scorching sun.

John Rennie

Oh well. I shall make an extra special lunch later to compensate - haven't decided what yet ...

scorching sun - rub it in why don't you :-)

user228700

Huh? No, you do not want to be here right now. Enjoy the rain!

user228700

Gosh, it even made me cry, that film.

Balarka Sen

@Kaumudi Cool. I'll watch it after I get back home

user228700

Wokay. I hope you get a chance to watch it at the theatre; the experience won't be nearly as amazing, watching it on your laptop or anything.

user228700

06:43

The first time a gun went off, I almost jumped in my seat.

Secret

google.com.au/…

Balarka Sen

Yeah, I know. I don't think I will be as excited by the film as you are, however.

Nolan is very good, so I am counting on it.

user228700

@BalarkaSen Let me know after you watch it.

user228700

I am not excited by it or anything but it did make me feel things.

Balarka Sen

Sure. Everyone has variable taste in films.

my english seems to be slowly deteriorating

user228700

06:48

Lol. More like your typing skills.

Balarka Sen

true

have you watched this new movie called Arrival by Villenevue

Villenueve

Villenevuevuevue

darnit

user228700

Lol. No, I haven't.

user228700

Is it good?

Balarka Sen

it's fairly recent, so maybe it's gonna be on your nearby theatres

it is very good.

not my favorite Villeneuve, but pretty nice

user228700

...which film are you talking about? The one directed by Denis Villeneuve, yes?

Balarka Sen

06:53

ye

user228700

Wtf, mate, that released in November of last year.

Balarka Sen

it's fresh yup

user228700

Sure, but it's certainly not still playing in any of the theatres here.

Balarka Sen

ah ok

user228700

Is it still playing in theatres near where you live?! :-o

Sid

06:55

The only Villeneuve I know is Giles Villeneuve and I am pretty sure he has nothing to do with movies..

Balarka Sen

nah prob not

i don't check theatres a lot

user228700

...I see.

user228700

What's IISER, Pune like?

Balarka Sen

big

user228700

Haha, I see. Two of my friends study there.

Balarka Sen

06:56

what's the opposite of claustrophobia called?

i have this

user228700

Well, only one as of now but the other will be joining next week.

Balarka Sen

oh cool

user228700

@BalarkaSen Oh, erm, I dunno...

user228700

Agoraphobia?

Balarka Sen

i think iiser students are on a break now and they're pilling us workshop students in on their rooms while they are away

user228700

06:58

They are, yeah. I see.

user228700

> Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the person perceives the environment to be unsafe with no easy way to get away.

user228700

> These situations can include open spaces, public transit, shopping malls, or simply being outside the home.

Balarka Sen

uh, well, it's rather like being panicked by the hugeness of the campus

it's like a friggin city dude

i get lost in here

user228700

Wow, I see. You should visit IIT, Madras, then, sometime.

user228700

One can enter the campus on one side of the city and come out on the complete opposite side.

Balarka Sen

07:00

heh

i have been to IITKGP for a short while and it's kind of large there too

user228700

Oh, right, I see.

user228700

Is the campus beautiful?

Balarka Sen

it's kind of nice. but hey i'm an underground man, i don't subscribe to the concept of beauty

user228700

Of course, right.

user228700

Do you have the workshop all day?

Balarka Sen

07:04

Don't talk of dust and roses

9:30 to 5:45 I think? starting tomorrow

user228700

Oh, so now you're left to explore the campus etc.?

Balarka Sen

sort of

i am not gonna

user228700

Lol, so are you just holed up in the room they assigned to you?

Balarka Sen

actually i wanted to talk to one of the faculty but i'll meet him on the workshop anyway so

oh right now i'm on the guest house. i'll be assigned my room later today

user228700

Oh, right, I see.

user228700

07:08

@BalarkaSen I'm still thinking about Dunkirk so I'm not quite ready to immerse myself in other pieces of art just yet.

Balarka Sen

that was just an isolated song from my repository of songs that come up when triggered by certain words or phrases

quite irrelevant

Diamond Dogs is a friggin good album nonetheless

i don't think you'll like it

user228700

@BalarkaSen Me neither :-P Call it upbeat shit all you want but I'll take Coldplay. Still, not this moment though. God, that movie was so good.

Balarka Sen

it kind of sucks when people get exposed to good pieces of art i am curious about before me

user228700

:-P Why?

Balarka Sen

it's hard to be an egoist :P

but hey that's why i delve in fantastic pieces of underground shit nobody gives a ... about

user228700

07:13

:-P Ah, of course.

user228700

If my family doesn't move to Kerala next year and if you join CMI, I'll buy you a coffee and you can explain, using words, all you've learned about existentialism...if you want.

user228700

@Balarka: It's OK if you'd rather pass, lol. I'm not an exceptionally interesting person to have coffee with :-P

Sid

huh, I thought Balarka was a Physics-guy and not a Math-guy.

user228700

@Balarka: Hey, as much as you'd like to stay holed up in ur room, I could even be your tour guide if you do fancy getting to know Chennai.

Balarka Sen

@Kaumudi.H I'm totally down for that. But pls, cocaine, not caffeine

user228700

07:21

Tall order, that one, but I'll try :-)

The Raiders of Las Vegas

Hi peeps

Balarka Sen

my internet's dangling out and i have to get some food and look around for my room

so see ya

user228700

@BalarkaSen Bye! Try and have fun :-P

user228700

@TheRaidersofLasVegas Hello :-)

The Raiders of Las Vegas

How are you?

user228700

07:25

Pretty good, actually. Still reeling from having watched Dunkirk. And you?

The Raiders of Las Vegas

Fine thanks.

user228700

> still reeling from having watched Dunkirk.

user228700

I should shut up before I start treading the oversell waters...

The Raiders of Las Vegas

Nah :-)

John Rennie

It's stopped raining :-)

user228700

07:31

Nice :-) It's still boiling hot here.

Sid

07:41

Heh, it's all gloomy weather here. I just want to sleep, eat pakodas and binge-watch videos. :P

user228700

I wanted to buy the cream bun/cold coffee combo they sell at the counter at the cinemas here but I was Rs. 10 short :'-( Made me real sad, that.

user228700

Oh, @JohnR: BTW!

John Rennie

Yes?

user228700

I re-activated facebook and unfriended two of my friends from school. I've decided to quit feeling bad about not accepting friend requests from people whom I will likely never again see in my whole life.

user228700

What prompted me to do so was that I found my future roommate on Fb. I sent her a friend request and a message, letting her know who I am.

Sid

07:44

@Kaumudi.H Your roommate doesn't know that you are going to be her roommate?

user228700

No, man, we haven't met yet. My college starts only the week after the next.

John Rennie

Facebook has its uses ...

@Kaumudi.H Eight days!

user228700

She accepted it at first but unfriended me in 5 minutes :'-( Didn't go well, my first interaction with my roommate.

Sid

@Kaumudi.H How do you know she is your roommate if you have never met her?

John Rennie

:-)

I wouldn't read too much into that

user228700

07:46

@Sid I asked my warden at the hostel.

John Rennie

She might simply want to wait until she meets you in person

user228700

@JohnRennie Roughly, yes. We're supposed to attend an orientation program a few days before classes start.

user228700

@JohnRennie Heh :-/ Perhap she was apprehensive about accepting a virtual stranger's friend request.

John Rennie

Perhaps you have now creeped her out and she thinks you're a psycho stalker :-)

user228700

:'-( But I didn't do any stalking!

user228700

07:48

She's literally the only person on Fb with her own name.

John Rennie

Bring along a collection of axes and unpack them ostentatiously in front of her

Sid

@Kaumudi.H It could be someone else too..

user228700

@Sid Nah, all the details match; she studies at the college and in the very same dept. my warden mentioned.

Sid

I wouldn't really pay attention to someone claiming over fb that they will be my future roommate. It sounds too creepy to me.

user228700

Huh. I would've been suspectful at first but I'd have called my warden to know if it was legit.

user228700

07:50

@JohnRennie :-) As it happens, I'm going to be alone for the first week; she's a senior by one year and her classes start only one week after mine.

Sid

@Kaumudi.H Wait, juniors and seniors live together?

user228700

Yeah. We're the same age, really, seeing as I too would've been in my second year by now had it not been for the drop year.

Sid

Hope that you will not be ragged there. :P

user228700

Nah, ragging is strictly prohibited on campus. We even had to sign an agreement during admission. We have a relatively small (1500-2000) population on campus, too, so it wouldn't be easy to get away with it.

user228700

Mum's sick so now I gotta make lunch for everyone. Toodles!

Mithrandir24601

08:16

@Kaumudi.H I use my own name. So do all but a few of my friends :P

Sid

@Mithrandir24601 What names do few of your friends use? Reddit-esque names?

Mithrandir24601

@Sid Nah, they just use slightly different versions of their own name, so if you know them, you can recognise their name, but if you don't know them (just had their details on a piece of paper or something), it doesn't seem to be them

(by 'few' I mean about 1-2%)

Shing

09:33

Will the massive particle accelerator in China open many job opportunities for physicists?

Dawood ibn Kareem

Don't say that. Trump will want to put a particle accelerator along the north side of his wall, to balance out the solar panels on the south side.

jyotishraj thoudam

Anyone online

Mithrandir24601

@jyotishrajthoudam Nope :P

Dawood ibn Kareem

10:19

Somebody has asked "is my kitten a girl or a boy" (along with a close up photo of kitten genitals). I'm so tempted to answer "neither - it's a fucking cat".

John Rennie

I knew someone whose job was sexing chicks. That is looking at day old chicks' bottoms and deciding if they were male or female.

A very important job in the egg production industry since males aren't very good at laying eggs :-)

Dawood ibn Kareem

That first sentence is so open to being misunderstood.

John Rennie

:-)

ACuriousMind

@JohnRennie Does ":-)" accurately reflect your feelings about what happens to the male chicks? :P

John Rennie

Sadly being a male chick in the egg production industry isn't a great life choice.

Though being any form of fowl in the egg production industry isn't exactly a great lifestyle.

Tobi

10:28

is it faster to try to create unique field and catch error if duplicate, or to check first
I guess with checking theres also a race case

John Rennie

@Tobi wrong chat room?

Tobi

yh soz

Dawood ibn Kareem

From the RSPCA Australia web site - "research into alternatives to allow chick sex to be determined in the early egg incubation phase should be urgently progressed". I wonder how that would work.

ACuriousMind

@DawoodibnKareem Well, the obvious way would be to take a sample from the egg and do a karyotype, right? (Of course that's too expensive)

Tobi

isnt this physics

Dawood ibn Kareem

10:38

@ACuriousMind How do you take a sample from the egg without damaging the shell and making the egg unviable?

@Tobi Nope, animal husbandry.

Tobi

PET!

John Rennie

@Tobi yes it is the physics chat but there don't seem to be any burning physics questions at the moment :-)

Tobi

i learned that in a level physics

PET, gamma camera, CAT,

whats the last one

with electron spins

John Rennie

Bit expensive for the egg industry ...

Tobi

Whats the other tomography method i forgot

John Rennie

10:40

At the moment the cheapest solution is to pay someone to look at the chicks' bums

ACuriousMind

@DawoodibnKareem Uh...teleportation devices? :D

Dawood ibn Kareem

I like the idea of using a CAT to check the sex of chickens.

John Rennie

@Tobi MRI?

Tobi

yes thanks

ACuriousMind

@DawoodibnKareem Sounds a bit like making the wolf the shepherd ;)

John Rennie

10:41

@Tobi That's nuclear spin not electron spin though

Dawood ibn Kareem

I think if we want to eat eggs, we have to live with the fact that male chickens are going to die. Just like, if we want to eat meat, we have to live with ... well, you know.

Tobi

yeah i didnt actually learn about i just remember it involved spins

and thats why im not taking physics at university

John Rennie

@Tobi just out of curiousity was your original post about adding rows to a SQL table while trying to have the manual equivalent of the autonumber column?

Tobi

errrm

basicallyyy, i think

using email as primary key

so dont want duplicates

I've decided to just catch error

Dawood ibn Kareem

I would seriously advise against using an email address as the primary key of a table. Use an autonumber instead. You can put a constraint on the table to keep the email addresses unique if you need to.

Tobi

10:48

Why autonumber?

John Rennie

@Tobi it's a simple way of having a unique primary key

Dawood ibn Kareem

Because databases are good at assigning unique numbers. If you try to re-invent the wheel, you end up tying yourself in knots over race conditions.

Tobi

But its an extra field that i dont feel is needed

and i can quickly search by email

There's no race condition with string primary key assignment

Dawood ibn Kareem

So you want a situation where every other table that has to have a foreign key into this table stores the entire email address?

Tobi

yes

Dawood ibn Kareem

10:50

Sounds far more wasteful than just one extra field in one table.

Tobi

its easier to refer to user by email than a random number

Dawood ibn Kareem

Also, what happens when someone changes their email address?

Tobi

exactly

its automatically handled

if another user with same email exists, errors thrown

John Rennie

@Tobi no it isn't

Tobi

no error?

John Rennie

10:51

You'd have to find all the other tables that link to your email address table and update them too

Tobi

no

it will cascade

Dawood ibn Kareem

You'd have to change a whole bunch of fields in a whole bunch of other tables, and update them all atomically, if someone's address changes.

Tobi

because its the primary key

John Rennie

Which RDBS are you using?

Tobi

same things for a number

Dawood ibn Kareem

10:52

Meanwhile, the tables all get restructured on the disk. Please don't do it. Pick something immutable to be the primary key, or use a surrogate key.

John Rennie

In SQL Server it most certainly won't csacade.

Dawood ibn Kareem

I've never encountered a DBMS in which it would automatically cascade. And I've worked with many of them.

Tobi

if u change primary key, it doesnt cascadee???

John Rennie

@Tobi no, because the number doesn't change. Just the e-mail address changes and that isn't a foreign key

@Tobi no

Tobi

ok ok i will make email unique and use ai

Dawood ibn Kareem

10:53

Good. You will thank us both later.

This is how people all round the world design databases. The technique has stood the test of time.

John Rennie

Chick sexing and RDBMS - is there no end to the skills this chat room can provide?

Dawood ibn Kareem

Well, I have only one of those skills. I still don't know the sex of my youngest pigeon, and it's already a couple of months old.

Tobi

thanks

John Rennie

I have to confess I have never sexed a chick either. I believe it is done by recognising subtle differences in the shape of the cloaca.

Dawood ibn Kareem

@Tobi Did you really mean for uname and email to be integers?

Tobi

11:01

forgot to make them varchar

LOL

i dropped the table because i couldnt be bothered ttrying to figure out how to remove primary

havent used sql in like 2 years

Dawood ibn Kareem

@JohnRennie For pigeons, you have to feel the shape of the pelvis.

Or just wait until EITHER one of its male cagemates mounts it OR it mounts one of its female cagemates OR it lays an egg.

Pigeon genitals are not visible outside the pigeon. Despite this.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3107027/…

John Rennie

That's exactly the typically high quality reporting we expect from the Daily Mail

But then sensationalism and bigotry have long been good sellers in the newspaper industry

Tobi

11:17

since when were birds so interesting

Dawood ibn Kareem

@JohnRennie To be fair, your link and my link don't actually contradict each other. But the headline in mine is misleading.

@Tobi I breed pigeons. Why shouldn't I talk about my hobby?

Tobi

What exactly is it, idk

Tobi

11:41

ANyone have tips on password hashing

I used bcrypt last time, serverside

is that good?

it was like 8 rounds or so

then transmit passwords raw text via https

so no sniff

Like, properly

ACuriousMind

@DawoodibnKareem Do you send messages with them or do you just breed them?

Slereah

12:00

or eat them

Loong

@Tobi "What Is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?" – on topic

The Raiders of Las Vegas

good to see that avatar glitch is now fixed

Emilio Pisanty

0

Q: Infinite chain of wells

If I have an infinate chain of wells and a particle that could exist in any of them: $$ |\psi\rangle=\sum^\infty_{-\infty}a_n|n\rangle $$ where $$ a_n=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left( \frac{-i}{3}\right)^{|n|/2}e^{in\pi} $$ What is the probability the particle exists in the wells $n=0$ or above. Let $...

quantum-mechanics

↑ this is a duplicate, right?

I swear I've seen those eqns before

ACuriousMind

@EmilioPisanty Good memory.

Emilio Pisanty

@ACuriousMind but it's not on OP's profile page

maybe he deleted it?

ACuriousMind

12:12

@EmilioPisanty it was automatically removed by the roomba. I undeleted it.

Emilio Pisanty

@ACuriousMind ah, that's what it was

The Raiders of Las Vegas

Did you guys hear Danu's news?

Emilio Pisanty

@vzn What part of this is "not impressed"?

2 days ago, by Emilio Pisanty

I have plenty of respect for nanophotonic quantum optics, as I made very explicit in my earlier comments, and indeed I agree with the position that it is not just a quantitative improvement but a difference in kind that allows quantum optics to do a rather large number of things that it couldn't do before, and that it is incredibly exciting new ground.

If the only way you are capable of discussing my previous comments is to misrepresent them, then simply stop discussing them, period.

Sir Cumference

12:28

@TheRaidersofLasVegas Did we hear da news?

The Raiders of Las Vegas

never mind, I should let him tell ya'll

ACuriousMind

@TheRaidersofLasVegas What are you talking about, it's still starred!

yesterday, by Danu

in Mathematics, 18 mins ago, by Danu

So I got a PhD position in Hamburg :D

Slereah

12:40

birthplace of hamburgers

Secret

indeed (I just learnt that today they are a german invention)

0celoñe7

13:10

@ACuriousMind I found coordinates in which the geometric and Riemannian normals agree

Sid

Where is @JohnRennie ?!

I got a guy claiming Oxford is better than Cambridge!

Anonymous

@Sid Hand JR an axe. :P

Slereah

uridimma.hopto.org/misc/kitty/kitty.html

TRON cat

0celoñe7

In other news, what I want to prove isn't wrong.

Slereah

good news

0celoñe7

13:24

I am just too lazy to write the proof now.

Slereah

Just pull a Fermat

0celoñe7

I did prove this, which feels like an achievement.

I also proved those vague statements in Giaquinta about mean curvature and distance functions.

Emilio Pisanty

13:39

booya!

physics.stackexchange.com/help/badges/37/…

Secret

maths chat is currently occupied by 3 users which are quarks of a proton

meanwhile I am still stuck in literature review limbo

heather

@EmilioPisanty congrats

Emilio Pisanty

@heather thanks =)

@heather I owed you a response, didn't I?

yesterday, by heather

i was looking around and I see from this indicates there is some sort of connection between phase and polarization (I was going to ask a question on the main site to clarify) but generally, is it easier to detect polarization than phase?

yesterday, by heather

I.e., if phase and polarization are connected, if I change the phase, can I look at the polarization of each photon and see if it has changed due to the change in phase?

heather

@EmilioPisanty I dunno about "owed" - you don't owe me anything, if anything I owe you something for putting up with my idiocy =)

Emilio Pisanty

what do you mean by "phase and polarization are connected"?

As in, the relative phase between the $y$ and $z$ components determines whether the polarization is linear or elliptical/circular?

heather

13:55

well, my dad was saying that phase and polarization affect each other, so changing the former (i.e., like i'm doing with a mirror) would change the latter). I looked around, and while many sites seem to say that no, there is no connection, i did see that one site i linked above, which seems to indicate there is a sort of connection.

@EmilioPisanty i suppose, yes.

Emilio Pisanty

yeah, that's a pretty weak connection

Secret

ok, a new activity that will help me to be more focused has occured. Given how both the h bar and maths chat are busy and I am still in limbo, I am gonna head to that activity and brb later

Emilio Pisanty

there's a difference between the global phase of the beam and the relative phase between the two polarization components

if you want to be able to muck with that relative phase, then you need a material that will impart a different phase (i.e. have a different refractive index) for the two different polarizations

that might sound a bit nuts, but it's actually pretty reasonable

Birefringence

Birefringence is the optical property of a material having a refractive index that depends on the polarization and propagation direction of light. These optically anisotropic materials are said to be birefringent (or birefractive). The birefringence is often quantified as the maximum difference between refractive indices exhibited by the material. Crystals with non-cubic crystal structures are often birefringent, as are plastics under mechanical stress. Birefringence is responsible for the phenomenon of double refraction whereby a ray of light, when incident upon a birefringent material, is split...

heather

okay, one moment. i'm mildly confused.

Emilio Pisanty

Waveplate

A waveplate or retarder is an optical device that alters the polarization state of a light wave travelling through it. Two common types of waveplates are the half-wave plate, which shifts the polarization direction of linearly polarized light, and the quarter-wave plate, which converts linearly polarized light into circularly polarized light and vice versa. A quarter-wave plate can be used to produce elliptical polarization as well. Waveplates are constructed out of a birefringent material (such as quartz or mica), for which the index of refraction is different for different orientations of light...

heather

13:59

how are there two components to the polarization?

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