Polarized rainbow, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN???

[AGrandt]

I had no idea rainbows were polarized light.

[j1noble]

You destroyed my rainbow with your witchcraft bifocles!

[MrStardust85]

in your face, David Blaine!

[T0B0KKE]

Those glasses are just like the linearly polarized 3D glasses!

Awesome video Doc Phil.

[MultiSteveB]

If I remember my high school physics class correctly, isn't light reflected from a certain kind of surface (I can't recall how it is categorized :/), polarized?

[Playli116]

i bet its photoshopped

[djaychannohatsukoi]

That was so cool and i never heard of such thing of a rainbow

[THE0GUVNAH]

@Maxdwolf Really now?... I may have to test that. Strictly for research purposes of course. All in the name of science...

[elcanteraun]

grande ! spettacolo !! ottimo !! :D

[CBKillas]

I dig the nifty colorful clouds with the 'ole cheapies!!

[qazmatron]

next time turn the glasses backwards to cover the entire lens.

[Dexxxter7780]

WITCH!!!! BURN IT WITH FIRE!!

[nashertheatheist]

lol I always thought he was British. IDEK why. The accent took me by surprise.

[acr08807]

@nashertheatheist He is British, but he affects an American accent.

[LostManSays]

Itz cuz ders shit wuts in da aer dat waz not there b 4

[Maxdwolf]

Actually it is a trick, just not a deceptive one posing as magic.

[LadyMyara]

so polarized glasses disappear polarized things in sight! get it! xD

[CappitranoBellephant]

Whoa! A polarized rainbow all the way! I may even be a double polarized rainbow!

[rkyeun]

We need that crazy retard lady with the sprinkler now.

"What is in our water supply, what is in our oxygen supply, that there should be a POLARIZED rainbow in our sprinklers? This is not natural!"

[rumidom]

i miss the Q&A videos

[THE0GUVNAH]

It's funny to snowboard with polarized shades on. Funny in the sense that any contours in the snow seem to vanish and reappear at will. I learned that the hard way...

[Maxdwolf]

@THE0GUVNAH Sounds like being on acid.

[DavidOD11850]

Wow that's amazing! :D

[NAMLegolas]

YAY! Phil on video! :D

[Maraguzzi]

i remember at the science museum playing around with polarized lenses and ice turns into all different colours pretty cool

[niiidar]

Friendship is magic. Magic is science.

Friendship is science!

[Cyrathil]

What evil stuff is the gubment putting into our water supply?! Back when I was a kid, I never saw rainbows, especially ones that could be summoned or dismissed with a pair of sunglasses!

[ChinnuWoW]

Thats so cool!

[Albukhshi]

cool fact: that's used in petrographic microscopes, to study minerals.

only instead of one polarized filter or lens, two filters 90 deg from each other are used to create what is called cross polarized light (and from there, Birefringence), with a third one inserted at 45 degrees to the E-W filter to determine what is called the optical sign of a mineral (assuming it is anisotropic).

structures that are isotropic, OR lack a crystalline structure (e.g. glass), will appear "extinct" (i.e. black).

[IntrovertedLuddite2]

Science is interesting

[softballshorty17]

Double rainbow man..

[rumleech]

You're never too old to learn something. I did not know that rainbows are so polarized.

[HalDanGhor]

We miss you buddy! Welcome back!!! And thanks for this interesting one about polarized rainbows! xD

[JimPrower]

Now, if I looked at a rainBOOM with polarized glasses....

[virumoz]

MIT physicist Walter Lewin has a great lecture about rainbows, including answers to 12 questions about them you'll likely remember next time you see rainbows.

The lecture is easy to find here on YouTube and iTunes U.

[frustratedlogician]

blasphemy, god created rainbows to suppress the nephilim powers and keep the race of hairy super-human primates from devolving into humans and chimps and gibbons, YOU MADE MAN FALL FROM GRACE YOU EVOTARD

whoa, sorry Dr. Plait. I just had a "@goodscienceforyou" moment.

[AlanCFA]

@frustratedlogician You do not want to have too many GSFY moments!

watch?v=K9m3f0RdGBs

[oakwind]

I polerised your mom!

[SlyEcho]

Also try turning your camera sideways next time.

[JimPlaysGames]

It's metallic oxide salts in our oxygen supply! The visible spectrum is rainbows!

[CommanderXED]

It's clearly caused by a loss of the ozone layer...or global warming...or someone was stealing the gold from Fort Knox..

[HealingBlight]

WITCH! WITCH!

BURN HIM!

[Fastes15]

what is this sorcery....

[GrunGrauWeiss]

HAARP!

nah, I'm kidding :)

[iamgoddard]

The easier explanation is that the rainbow disappears when your glasses rotate 90 degrees, powerful glasses!! Lol. ;)

[protopod]

Neat.

[Clausfarre]

Cast this demon away! So is the gold also gone when you tilt your voodoo spectacles??

[FatLingon]

The scientific answer to why rainbows are polorized is "God made it that way"... now, isn't that satifying? Creation Science FTW!

[deaddu]

@FatLingon

god has judged your post to be satisfying.. how do i know this you ask? quick! look at the pretty rainbow, isnt it wonderful

[mathmexican4234]

He's a witch!

[Missmamita03]

polarized rainbow all the way! <3

[fuunguus]

NOOO why didn't you tell me. I am tired and lazy now and don't wanna read lots of crap, but now I am gonna wonder about this all day!!!

[marsCubed]

@fuunguus The reason a rainbow forms is because light reflects internally within rain drops..

Ie.. light goes from sun -> rain -> internal reflection ->your eyes.

Because the angle is important, & because polarized light cuts our certain directions of light.. parts of a rainbow can be 'turned on and off' by rotating a polarized lens.

I suspect that not all of a rainbow would be equally affected & that a circular rainbow might only be blocked in certain places BTW.. dunno.. test it.. should work.

[Crystalgate]

@marsCubed It's true that not all of a rainbow would be affected. The clouds blocked out the rest of the raibow in this case.

[nikotina2003]

So the North and South poles are interfering with the rainbow? Amazing!

[alimesta]

Does it work with all kinds of solar glasses??

[Venator70]

@alimesta Any sunglasses with polarising lens on them will work.

[spenceII]

So what you're saying is it's magic...

[kellhiro]

@spenceII NO FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC THIS IS DUN DUN DUUUUUN,...... SCIENCE XD

[elmalacopa]

polarized rainbow all the way!

[leaf16nut]

Freakky!

[THEHARMONIKZ]

It's a miracle....of science. o,O

[Astrostevo]

Rainbows make nice natural spectroscopes too don't they?

Must admit Ididn't realise about the polarisation there.

[SpookyFan]

Nice to see you on camera here.