What are the main difference between unpolarised light and linearly polarised light?
Light is the visible spectrum of electro-magnetic forces. Like all EM forces, its quanta (the photons) travel in transverse waves…like water molecules in the ripples on a pond. Transverse waves have their amplitudes in directions perpendicular to the direction the photons are traveling…sort of like the crests and valleys of those ripples on the pond going up and down while the ripples spread outward across the surface. However, unlike the ripples that are confined to move up and down only, the transverse waves of light can and are oriented 360 degrees around the direction of photon travel. If you look down the direction of travel of a beam of light, the transverse waves from that beam would totally encircle the axis of that beam. When these transverse waves of light are oriented completely around the direction of the light, we call that “unpolarized” light. This is of course a misnomer. In fact that kind of light is omni polarized…it is polarized in all (omni) angles around the l
