What is meant by rotation of plane polarized light
Answers
Answer: A simple analogy - "plane polarised string"
Imagine tying a piece of thick string to a hook in a wall, and then shaking the string vigorously. The string will be vibrating in all possible directions - up-and-down, side-to-side, and all the directions in-between - giving it a really complex overall motion.
Explanation:
The real thing - plane polarised light.
Light is also made up of vibrations - this time, electromagnetic ones. Some materials have the ability to screen out all the vibrations apart from those in one plane and so produce plane polarised light.
The most familiar example of this is the material that Polaroid sunglasses are made of. If you wear one pair of Polaroid sunglasses and hold another pair up in front of them so that the glasses are held vertically rather than horizontally, you'll find that no light gets through - you will just see darkness. This is equivalent to the two slits at right angles in the string analogy. The polaroids are described as being "crossed".
The ability of a solution to rotate plane polarized light in this optical activity.