Talk:Polarimeter

Untitled discussion 1
Description of the operation of the instrument: I do not have a reference to hand. In my experience of using manual polarimeters, analyser and polarizer are crossed for maximum light extinction (minimum intensity) rather than parallel for maximum intensity. Whether by eye or instrument, the minimum intensity occurs at a much sharper angular resolution, and is much easier to find than a maximum on a rather broad plateau. It is also the case that in most of the optical instruments I have used a pair of Nicol prisms, misaligned by about 1°, has been used as the analyser, because it is much easier for a human viewer to colour match a pair of dark field images than to pinpoint the position of maximum darkness. Not sure whether or not that is also the case for instrumental detection of the light. Damocles2 (talk) 23:35, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I suspect you're right about minimum intensity, rather than maximum.  I"ll see if I can find a reference for that. Walkerma (talk) 03:49, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Polariscope may be slightly different
Polariscope in Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia vol X (1922) shows sliding quartz wedges rather than rotation of the Nicol prism in the analyser. The 'scope' name may come from the small telescope used to read the vernier scale on the sliding quartz wedges. - Rod57 (talk) 00:35, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

[Modern] Polariscopes may be intended to study gem-stones/solid crystals, perhaps under a microscope ? - Rod57 (talk) 00:46, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

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