Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Polarized sunglasses are like dropping acid

Try tilting your head far to one side

Matt: Okay, so I’m driving along. It could be Anytown USA. Sun is out. Gotta have the sun out. I’m wearing my shades. I notice that a lot of cars around me have these weird patterns in the back windows. Geometric designs, mostly circles, but other patterns too. Mostly newer cars (late ’70s and up), but some older cars. So I take my shades off. The patterns go away! Put the glasses back on and it’s op art all over again. I thought it might be all the acid I ate in the ’70s, but it’s too consistent, too regular....

What gives? PPG’s little joke? Anticounterfeit measure to combat the floods of cheap Chinese knockoff safety glass? Or perhaps aliens “tagging” those slated for extermination during the upcoming invasion? Or worse yet, because there are so many of them and because they drive so badly, these mark the vehicles of those who have recently infiltrated planet Earth as the advance guard. Maybe, just maybe I’ve picked up a pair of'‘special” sunglasses that allow only me to see these alien markings, since few other people notice them.

Sponsored
Sponsored

This is SO strange. Please help me before it is too late. Have a nice day. — Stan, e-mailville

I’ll bet you’re the kinda guy who opens a new purchase, locates the instruction sheet, then wads it up fast and tosses it. Did you read the label on the glasses, or did you just grab the first pair that made you look like a ski stud or jet jockey? You’ve got yourself a pair of specs with polarized lenses, popular with outdoorspersons for their glare-killing properties. We won’t tax your brain with the vibrational peculiarities of light waves; we’ll just say that when sunlight bounces off glass (or water or other nonmetallic surface), most of it is reoriented in a horizontal direction. Your lenses are vertically polarized, meaning the horizontal rays are blocked and only the vertical rays reach your eyes.

Think of it as a dog with a stick in its mouth running through a picket fence. Maybe the more vertically oriented dog will make it, but only if he drops the stick. This is the glare-elimination property of polarized lenses. Your acid-flashback car windows are probably coated or tinted with some kind of sun blocker, and variations in the coating will affect the amount of reflected light, creating your wavy patterns. Polarized lenses are also used to detect stress patterns in curved nonmetallic objects, and the patterns also show up as wavy circles. The amount of filtering depends on the angle between your eye and the object being viewed, so when you move your head, the pattern will change. Try tilting your head far to one side (reorienting the polarization of the lenses) and watch the effect disappear. For the price of a pair of glasses, it’s a pretty cheap light show.

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Trophy truck crushes four at Baja 1000

"Two other racers on quads died too,"
Next Article

Poway’s schools, faced with money squeeze, fined for voter mailing

$105 million bond required payback of nearly 10 times that amount

Matt: Okay, so I’m driving along. It could be Anytown USA. Sun is out. Gotta have the sun out. I’m wearing my shades. I notice that a lot of cars around me have these weird patterns in the back windows. Geometric designs, mostly circles, but other patterns too. Mostly newer cars (late ’70s and up), but some older cars. So I take my shades off. The patterns go away! Put the glasses back on and it’s op art all over again. I thought it might be all the acid I ate in the ’70s, but it’s too consistent, too regular....

What gives? PPG’s little joke? Anticounterfeit measure to combat the floods of cheap Chinese knockoff safety glass? Or perhaps aliens “tagging” those slated for extermination during the upcoming invasion? Or worse yet, because there are so many of them and because they drive so badly, these mark the vehicles of those who have recently infiltrated planet Earth as the advance guard. Maybe, just maybe I’ve picked up a pair of'‘special” sunglasses that allow only me to see these alien markings, since few other people notice them.

Sponsored
Sponsored

This is SO strange. Please help me before it is too late. Have a nice day. — Stan, e-mailville

I’ll bet you’re the kinda guy who opens a new purchase, locates the instruction sheet, then wads it up fast and tosses it. Did you read the label on the glasses, or did you just grab the first pair that made you look like a ski stud or jet jockey? You’ve got yourself a pair of specs with polarized lenses, popular with outdoorspersons for their glare-killing properties. We won’t tax your brain with the vibrational peculiarities of light waves; we’ll just say that when sunlight bounces off glass (or water or other nonmetallic surface), most of it is reoriented in a horizontal direction. Your lenses are vertically polarized, meaning the horizontal rays are blocked and only the vertical rays reach your eyes.

Think of it as a dog with a stick in its mouth running through a picket fence. Maybe the more vertically oriented dog will make it, but only if he drops the stick. This is the glare-elimination property of polarized lenses. Your acid-flashback car windows are probably coated or tinted with some kind of sun blocker, and variations in the coating will affect the amount of reflected light, creating your wavy patterns. Polarized lenses are also used to detect stress patterns in curved nonmetallic objects, and the patterns also show up as wavy circles. The amount of filtering depends on the angle between your eye and the object being viewed, so when you move your head, the pattern will change. Try tilting your head far to one side (reorienting the polarization of the lenses) and watch the effect disappear. For the price of a pair of glasses, it’s a pretty cheap light show.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Syrian treat maker Hakmi Sweets makes Dubai chocolate bars

Look for the counter shop inside a Mediterranean grill in El Cajon
Next Article

Woodpeckers are stocking away acorns, Amorous tarantulas

Stunning sycamores, Mars rising
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader