Analysis

Experiment 6 is labelled as Photometry where we

investigate the principles of how light spreads from a
source point. Two measurements could be done for
photometry and one is with the use of the naked eye
while the other relies on photoelectric equipment that
could measure light. E406 relies on the Naked eye and
computations to try and prove the theory of how light
Intensity Works. The Theory that governs the first
procedure is the Inverse Square Law which shows that
the first intensity over the second intensity is equal to the
square of the second radius over the square of the first
square. The second Procedure on the other hand involves
Polarization which explains that when a light that is
unpolarized passes through a polarizer, some parts of
that light becomes polarized since it is parallel with the
angle of the polarizer and some parts of the light wont
pass through. By having two polarizers with their angle
perpendicular to each other or when the Angle is 90
degrees, then no light would pass. But if angle is at 0
degrees or when the Polarizers are parallel to each other,
then all light would pass. Thus the light passing through is
proportional to the Angle between the two polarizers.
The First procedure is done by placing the first light
source at the initial mark on the optics table while placing
the second light source at a distance of 100 cm from the
first light source. An apparatus called the Photometer will
be placed in between the two sources or 50 cm from the
two sources. This will be used to place one light next to
another light for comparison. Then the Second light
source will be moved towards or away from the
Photometer so the light can be adjusted. The procedure is
divided into 8 parts where the first 4 parts have a r 1 of 30

cm while the remaining 4 parts have an r 2 of 45 cm. Each

4 parts then vary per transmittance of Light by varying
the filters. The Transmittance for the first one is 100% or
I2 is equal to I1. We have attained an experimental value
of 27.6 cm for the distance between the photometer and
the second light source in order for both lights to be
visually equal to the naked eye. It is also worth noting
that the computed distance is at 30 cm with a percent
error of 8% from the experimental value. The Next
comparison is when the Transmittance is at 25% where .
25I2=I1 and still r1= 30 cm. The Experimental value
attained is at 14 cm which is 6.67% percent different from
the computed value of 15 cm. This shows that by limiting
intensity of Light source 2 with the use of the filter, the
respective light source is then needed to be closer to the
Photometer in order to be equal to the Light source 1.
Thus we have verified that the Intensity of the Light is
proportional to the radius where the closer the light
source is to the point, the greater the intensity is. Thus
when Light source 2 was limited in transmittance of light,
it needed to adjust its distance with the photometer to
still be equal with Light source 1. The Results from the
first 4 parts agree with the results from the second 4
parts which only varied with r 1 being 45 cm in the second
4 parts. But still the Results matched with the first set of
results where when intensity is limited, the distance
should be decreased in other to compensate for the lost
intensity.
The Second Procedure involves the use of
Polarization where we also determine the intensity of the
light source but this time depending on the angle
between the two filters. This part is started by placing
the two light sources 80 cm between each other then
placing the Photometer 40 cm in between the two Light

sources. The Procedure is divided into 4 parts, where they

vary each in transmittance percentage. And in each part,
the filters are then observed from 0 degrees and up to 90
degrees. At 100% transmittance, the Intensity is equal
when both filters are parallel to each other while when 90
degrees, the second light source is noticeably darker than
the 1st one. This trend is present even up to the 25%
transmittance level since even at that level, the principle
is still being followed that to decrease the intensity, the
angle between the two polarizers must be increased but
to compensate for the decrease of intensity, the distance
between the photometer and the Light source must be
decreased.

Conclusion
The Principles Used for the Experiment is the
principle of Inverse Square Law and Polarization which
was investigated in procedures 1 and 2 respectively. The
Inverse Square Law and the 1st procedure aims to explain
how the Intensity varies per distance from a light source.
Evidence to prove this claim is given in Table 1) Inverse
Square law. In Table 1, it is given that when Transmittance
of light is decreased, intensity could still be compensated
by decreasing the distance between the light source and
the screen. But if intensity is desired to be decreased,
then we can therefore add distance between the light
source and the screen or add a filter that will decrease
transmittance.
The Second Procedure aims to explain how
Polarization affects the transmittance of unpolarized light
dependent to the angle between two polarizers. This was
proven to have an effect because it its seen on Table 2)
that during in order for the unpolarized light to match the
intensity with the transmitted light, the polarizers must
be moved. Whereas by increasing the angle between the
Polarizers, we can match with the intensity of the light
affected by the filters. With the Answers from both Part 1
and Part 2, we can therefore conclude that Intensity of
Light is Dependent on the filter type which the light
passes through and the Distance of the light source to the
Point we want to measure it.
To improve the results of the experiment, a digital
photometer which would help with determining whether
the light is equal or not compared to relying totally on the
eyes of the students. Since the students have different
perception of colors, this could lead to conflict among the
students since one could think that the intensity is

already equal but to another student, the intensity is still

not equal. With the Help of Smart phones that have a
camera feature, it could help determine whether the
intensity is already the same for this experiment. Since
when the light is viewed from the screen of the phone,
the image is already adjusted such that the color features
are better to look at.