ABSTRACT
The discovery of the phenomena of polarized electromagnetic energy dated back to about AD 1000 when the Vikings used crystals to observe the polarization of sky light under foggy conditions, and were thus able to navigate in the absence of sunlight. In 1669, the first known quantitative work on light observation was published by Erasmus Bartolinus. He was followed by C. Huygens who contributed most signifi-cantly to the field of optics by proposing the wave nature of light and discovering polarized light (1677). E.L. Malus proved Newton’s conjecture that polarization is an intrinsic property of light (1808).
