Name: Nature of Electromagnetic Waves
Uploaded: 2019-07-19
Duration: 5 min 57 s
Description: Have you ever wondered why light doesn’t push you, the way wind or water do? Or does it? Watch this video to learn how light exerts a force on us.

Question

Describe an experiment to show that light waves are transverse.

Accepted Answer

Experiment to prove transverse nature of light waves:
Let us take two are two tourmaline crystals $(T_{1} and T_{2})$ termed as polariser and analyser cut with their faces parallel to the crystallographic axis Light from a source is passed through the polariser If it is rotated with the incident light direction as axis, the transmitted light will show no variation in intensity.
Now the polariser is kept fixed and a second crystal, called analyser whose axis is parallel to it, is rotated about the incident beam.The light transmitted by the crystal shows a variation in intensity when it is rotated.The intensity of transmitted beam becomes zero when the axis of both the crystals are at right angles to each other and reaches a maximum when the axis of two crystals are parallel to each other (As shown in the figure)

This experiment shows that light waves are transverse in nature.If light waves were longitudinal, then the light transmitted by the crystal would not have shown any variation in intensity when it is rotated.

Describe an experiment to show that light waves are transverse.

Important Questions on Polarisation of Light

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