Abstract
(Preliminary Note.) WHEN a beam of plane-polarised light is incident normally on a plate of tourmaline cut parallel to the optic axis, it will be absorbed or transmitted depending upon whether the axis of the tourmaline is parallel or perpendicular to the plane of polarisation of the incident light. If the arrangement is such that the light is absorbed, then in a given time a definite amount of heat energy will have passed from the source of light into the plate of tourmaline, and if, as is necessarily true, the former is at a high temperature while the latter is at a low temperature, it is plain that the entropy of the system will have been increased. The same increase in entropy would not have taken place if the orientation of the tourmaline had been such that the light had been transmitted.
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ANDERSON, J. The Rotation of a Crystal of Tourmaline by Plane Polarised Light. Nature 78, 413 (1908). https://doi.org/10.1038/078413a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/078413a0
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