Question

A scuba diver sees light reflected from the water’s surface. At what angle will this light be completely polarized?

Short answer

The angle is \({53.1^\circ }\).

Step-by-step solution

 Step 1: Definition of polarisation

The term polarised refers to a medium that shows polarisation.

Finding the angle

The equation is used to solve this problem\(\tan \left( {{\theta _b}} \right) = \dfrac{{{n_2}}}{{{n_1}}}\) where \({n_1}\) is the index of reflection for air and for water, is the index of reddfraction for water is \({n_2}\).

\(\begin{aligned}\tan \left( {{\theta _b}} \right) &= \dfrac{{{n_2}}}{{{n_1}}}\\ &= \dfrac{{1.33}}{{1.00}}\\ &= 1.33\end{aligned}\)

Solving for the angle, we get

\(\begin{aligned}{\theta _b} &= {\tan ^{ - 1}}(1.33)\\ &= {53.1^\circ }\end{aligned}\)

Therefore, the angle is \({53.1^\circ }.\)