Cosmos Computed

What exactly is polarized light? You may have heard of it before, or read the name. It sounds cool, so what is it? That is what I will explain in this post. Light is like a wave, or bumpy curve, in many respects. This wave is a sine wave (see my Sine and Cosine post). The wave can oscillate (wobble) in an up-down motion, or a left-right motion; sometimes it does a mixture of both, and wobbles in a circular pattern. Look at the wall, or the floor. There are quadrillions of light waves bouncing off them. Some of the light waves oscillate in an up-down motion, others oscillate in a left-right motion, and others oscillate in a diagonal motion. The different types of waves are all jumbled together. Is it possible to have a bunch of light waves that all wobble the same way? Yes! Light like that even has a name: polarized light . You can buy filters that will polarize light; the filters are called polarizers , or polarized filters . Some sunglasses are made with polarized lenses; those are c

Trigonometry is the study of the relationship between the angles and sides of triangles. The two most essential parts of trig are the functions  sine and cosine . Both take an angle, and return a number. The way they work is really quite simple. A diagram showing sine (abbreviated sin) and cosine (cos) To find the sine of the angle θ , draw a circle with radius 1 on a graph, and put the circle's center at the origin of a graph. Find a point on the edge of the circle. The point makes an angle with the center of the circle; make sure that the angle is  θ . Sine of  θ  is the point's y-coordinate. Cosine is the point's x-coordinate. (See the picture to the right.) Sine and cosine are very useful for calculating heights and distances. For example, let's say somebody needs to know the height of a sky scraper, but isn't able to measure it physically with a tape. If he walks a certain distance away from it, and looks at the angle it subtends in the sky, he can use trigono