- #1
yuiop
- 3,962
- 20
Reading around the subject, I get the impression that it is impossible to have full knowledge of the polarisation angle of a photon. For example is a linearly polarised photon passes through a vertical polariser it is said to be "vertically polarised" on exiting the polariser, but in fact all we know is that before entering the the polariser the vertical component was great than the horizontal component of the polarisation and that after exiting the polariser, the horizontal component is undetermined and almost certainly not the same as its horizontal polarisation before it entered the polariser.
It seems if set up various experiments, even including entangled photons, we can not full determine what the vertical and horizontal components were at any given time. Can anyone offer a counter-example?
Is this correct? What is the correct terminology for this effect? Is vertical and horizontal polarisation complementary? I get the impression it is not but I am not clear why.
It seems if set up various experiments, even including entangled photons, we can not full determine what the vertical and horizontal components were at any given time. Can anyone offer a counter-example?
Is this correct? What is the correct terminology for this effect? Is vertical and horizontal polarisation complementary? I get the impression it is not but I am not clear why.