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07
2026
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08
Peering at Light Between “Bias” and “Polarization”: Marius’s Sunset and the Birth of the Transliterated Term for Polarization
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“Polarization” is a central concept in physical optics that describes the directional properties of transverse wave vectors, and polarization technology plays a crucial role in display, communication, remote sensing, and **equipment.** Its English counterpart, “polarization,” derives from an analogical term proposed by Malus, who drew on the phenomenon of magnetic poles. The establishment of the Chinese translation “偏振” was not a mere literal rendering but rather a creative adaptation that integrates the essence of the phenomenon with the imagery of the Chinese language. This paper traces the etymological evolution of “偏振” and the process by which its Chinese name was finalized, offering an in-depth analysis of the underlying theoretical rationale behind the characters “偏” and “振.” Furthermore, addressing the persistent question—why “polarization” is rendered as “偏振” in optics yet as “极化” in electromagnetics and materials science—the paper dissects this issue from both the perspectives of physical mechanisms and historical development, thereby deepening readers’ understanding of “polarization.”
I. Introduction
Polarization of light refers to the phenomenon in which the vibration direction of a light wave (or other electromagnetic waves) exhibits a specific orientation during propagation, typically described in terms of the oscillation direction of the electric field vector. Light polarization is a fundamental topic in physical optics and serves as a clear distinguishing feature between transverse and longitudinal waves. As research into light polarization has advanced, polarization technologies have steadily evolved and become critical enablers of modern civilization and ****. For example, liquid crystal display (LCD) technology is widely used in televisions, computers, smartphones, and other devices, having already established a global market worth trillions of dollars. [1] Its core principle is to apply polarization control to liquid crystal materials with optical anisotropy. [2] In fiber-optic communications, polarization division multiplexing (PDM) leverages two orthogonal polarization states to carry signals independently, effectively doubling the transmission capacity of a single optical fiber and serving as one of the fundamental physical enablers of global Internet traffic. [3] In the field of applications, since natural light undergoes changes in its polarization state upon reflection from ground objects, and because the polarization characteristics of man-made targets differ significantly from those of natural vegetation, polarization imaging technology can be employed for camouflage detection, anti‑jamming, extending target detection range, and target classification, among other uses. [4] Unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles that rely on polarization‑based navigation can still achieve precise orientation using a “sky‑polarization compass” even in environments of severe electromagnetic interference where satellite signals are denied. This represents a strategic‑level autonomous navigation capability for future deny‑and‑degrade scenarios. [5] 。
The aforementioned scientific research and the development of advanced technologies both stem from centuries of study into the polarization of light. Throughout the long history of optical science, in 1669, Erasmus Bartholin, a scholar at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, observed the phenomenon of double refraction in Iceland spar crystals. [6] That is, when a beam of light enters a crystal, it splits into two refracted beams. In 1690, Christiaan Huygens systematically investigated the double refraction of Iceland spar in his Treatise on Light and discovered that, when each of these two beams passes through a second piece of Iceland spar, their behavior no longer conforms to the standard laws of refraction. [7] In 1717, Isaac Newton, in his work Opticks, challenged Huygens’s wave theory and employed the double refraction of Iceland spar to support his corpuscular theory. [8] Through experiments involving the rotation of crystals, Newton discovered that the direction of anomalous refraction depends on the “orientation” of the light ray as it enters the crystal. Based on this, he proposed a revolutionary hypothesis: each light ray inherently possesses distinct “sides.” A single ray has two pairs of opposing “sides,” one pair exhibiting properties that give rise to anomalous refraction, while the other pair does not; moreover, these properties are intrinsic to the ray and remain constant over time. At the same time, Newton drew an analogy between this “sideness” of light rays and that of magnets. In Question 29, added to the later editions of his Opticks, he wrote: “Have not the Rays of Light several sides...? And if the Rays of Light have different sides, may they not be compared to the Poles of a Magnet, and be said to have Poles?” [9] In this passage, Newton likened the birefringence exhibited by light in Iceland spar to that of a magnetic needle. He argued that when light passes through the crystal, it acquires a kind of “polarity,” much as a magnetic needle possesses north and south poles and aligns itself within a magnetic field. In 1808, the French engineer Étienne-Louis Malus, while observing the afterglow of the setting sun reflected from a glass window of the Luxembourg Palace through an Iceland-spar crystal, discovered the phenomenon of light polarization. He integrated previously recorded, scattered observations—such as birefringence and the orientation-dependent intensity of double images—with his new finding of polarization induced by reflection, unifying them under a single conceptual framework and coining the term “polarization of light.” From then on, light polarization became a distinct and well-defined branch of optical research.
So, why was the phenomenon of light polarization given the name “polarization”? How did it make its way from the Western academic context into Chinese scientific discourse, and how has it exerted such a profound influence on modern technology?
II. The Origin of the English Term “Polarization”
The earliest formal discovery of the phenomenon of double refraction is credited to Rømer. In 1669, while studying a batch of transparent Iceland spar crystals brought back from Iceland, he encountered a phenomenon that overturned the prevailing laws of refraction: when an object or text was placed beneath the crystal and viewed through it, two superimposed images appeared; moreover, as the crystal was moved, the two images shifted relative to one another. Rømer conducted systematic observations of this effect and, in his published work “Experiments on the Peculiar Refraction of Iceland Spar” (originally written in Latin under the title “Experimenta crystalli islandici disdiaclastici quibus mira & insolita refractio detegitur”), first termed the splitting of a single beam of light passing through the crystal into two beams “double refraction (duplicem refractionem).” [6] . At the same time, he also named these two beams of light “the ordinary ray (radius ordinarius)” and “the extraordinary ray (radius extraordinarius).” The original Latin reads: “In hoc crystallo mira bilis est refractio: siquidem objecta per ipsum visa, duplicia apparent; idque non solum si oculo admoveatur, sed etiam si in tenues lamellas findatur. Radios, quos emittit, partim ordinarie refringi, partim vero extraordinarie dicemus; priorem radium ordinarium, posteriorem extraordinarium appellantes.” (“In this crystal, there is a remarkable refraction: when objects are viewed through it, they appear doubly imaged; and this occurs not only when the eye is held close to it, but even when it is sliced into thin plates. We may say that the rays it emits are refracted partly in the ordinary manner and partly in an extraordinary manner; we call the former the ordinary ray and the latter the extraordinary ray.”) Bartholin’s contribution to the concept of “polarization” lay in his recognition that double refraction is an intrinsic, universal property of light as it passes through certain specific crystals, and he further pointed out that the ordinary ray obeys the established laws of refraction, whereas the behavior of the extraordinary ray varies with the orientation of the crystal. These descriptions laid the foundation for the study of double refraction, and thus Bartholin is regarded as its discoverer. However, he was unable to provide a theoretical explanation for this phenomenon. It was the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens who first offered a profound theoretical analysis of double refraction. In his seminal work, “Treatise on Light,” two chapters are devoted specifically to “the peculiar refraction of Iceland spar.” [7] Huygens proposed that, within Iceland spar, light waves do not propagate as a single spherical wave but instead exhibit a double wavefront, thereby predicting the propagation path of the extraordinary ray at any angle of incidence.
In 1808, Malus observed the setting sun reflected from a window through a calcite crystal. He had expected to see two images of the sun—resulting from double refraction—but was surprised to find that, as he rotated the crystal, the two reflected images did not simply rotate as anticipated; instead, they alternately brightened and dimmed with each turn. Moreover, when the crystal was turned to a particular orientation, one of the images vanished entirely, leaving only a single, sharp image—a phenomenon known as “extinction.” Malus realized that the light after reflection had lost the original symmetry of vibrations in all directions characteristic of natural light, acquiring instead a distinct “directionality.” He promptly conducted systematic experiments, demonstrating that this peculiar property could arise through both reflection and refraction and obeyed precise quantitative laws. In 1809, in his paper submitted to the French Academy of Sciences, [10] He first coined the term “polarization” to describe the phenomenon he observed—namely, “polarization.” The original French text of this paper reads: “Cette propriété, que j’ai désignée sous le nom de polarisation de la lumière, a été découverte par les expériences suivantes…” (English translation: “This property, which I have termed the polarization of light, has been revealed by the following experiments…”) In the word “polarization,” Malus drew on the Latin term polaris (“pertaining to the pole”) and the French word pôle (“pole”), thereby naming this type of light “lumière polarisée,” or in English, “polarized light.” At the time, magnetism was already well developed: magnets possessed distinct north and south poles, exhibiting a pronounced axial character. Malus reasoned that, in the phenomenon of polarization, light itself acquired a “pole”; hence, he invented the term “polarization,” meaning “to endow light with polarity.” Thus, this nomenclature did not imply that light was “deflected” but rather emphasized the emergence of a “polar” differentiation akin to that of a magnet. This naming convention profoundly influenced subsequent physics; even though it was later demonstrated that polarized light and magnetic poles are fundamentally different, the term “polarization” has endured as a historical legacy.
III. The Coining of the Chinese Term “Polarization”
During the period of the westward transmission of Western learning, numerous Western works on optics were translated into Chinese. Particularly by the mid-nineteenth century, modern optical knowledge began to spread throughout China. With the rise of the Self-Strengthening Movement, in 1876, John Tyndall’s book “Optics” was jointly translated and published by the American missionary Carl T. Kreyer and Zhao Yuanyi. [11] The content of this book not only encompasses systematic geometric optics but also, for the first time, presents the fundamentals of wave optics to Chinese readers in a comprehensive manner. Precisely because wave optics was being introduced for the first time, the translation of many technical terms proved exceedingly challenging—among them, concepts related to the polarization of light. In this work, “polarized light” is rendered as “extreme light”; the associated terms “ordinary and extraordinary rays” are translated as “common‑refracting ray” and “aberrant‑refracting ray,” respectively; “rotatory polarization” is rendered as “rotating extreme light”; and Étienne-Louis Malus, who discovered the phenomenon of polarization, is transliterated as “Ma Le Si.”
More than twenty years after the publication of Jin Kaili and Zhao Yuanyi’s translation of “Optics,” the Shandong Dengzhou Wenhuiguan, founded by the American Northern Presbyterian missionary David McCune, issued a relatively well‑crafted optics textbook titled “An Outline of Optics.” [12] The book was interpreted orally by the American missionary Watson McMillen Hayes and written in Chinese by Zhu Baochen. It comprises two volumes and seven chapters, features superb illustrations, and includes at the end a bilingual glossary of technical terms and personal names, facilitating reference for readers. In this work, the term for polarized light follows the translation used in “Optics,” namely “polarized light.”
Following the Hundred Days’ Reform, China’s educational system underwent changes, and optics was already being taught at the university level as part of physics. In 1900, “Physics,” compiled by Iimori Teizō of Japan and retranslated and revised by Fujita Toyohachi and Wang Jilie, was published. [13] , was China’s first relatively comprehensive physics textbook. In the original Japanese edition of this book, the Japanese term for the English phrase “polarization of the light” was “光ノ分极.” In the Chinese translation of the same work, this Japanese term was rendered as “光之分极.” In 1908, the Qing government established a Ministry of Education to oversee the compilation, review, and publication of works, resulting in the release of the first standardized physics terminology compendium, titled “Physics Vocabulary.” [14] In this entry, “polarized light” is translated as “split‑polarized light.”
Although during the late Ming and early Qing periods, Chinese scholars introduced numerous physics texts through the translations of missionaries, Westerners had by then already developed a systematic body of classical physics, whereas the Chinese were only just beginning to engage with the discipline. Moreover, given the substantial differences in intellectual backgrounds and modes of thought between East and West, directly adopting or translating Western physics works proved exceedingly challenging. [15] Moreover, China and Japan began their journeys toward modernization at roughly the same juncture, and their cultures and modes of thought were similar. Coupled with the historical context prevailing in China at the time, the physics terminology finalized in the late Qing period was, to a considerable extent, influenced by Japanese translations.
Following the Xinhai Revolution, the standardization of scientific terminology was largely undertaken independently by Chinese scholars and experts. In 1912, the Provisional Government of the Republic of China established the Ministry of Education. In 1918, the Ministry set up the Scientific Terminology Review Committee. The Chinese Science Society, founded in 1915 at the initiative of Chinese students studying in the United States, began participating in the work of the Scientific Terminology Review Committee from 1919 onward. In 1920, the committee decided to establish a physics subcommittee, with the Chinese Science Society serving as the principal drafting body. From that point on, the review and standardization of Chinese physics terminology entered a new phase. [16] In 1931, the Compilation and Review Division of the Ministry of Education published the “Physics Terminology (Ministry of Education Revised Edition),” which officially adopted the term “polarization” as the standard translation for “polarization” in optics.
As a translation that captures the quintessential spirit of Chinese, “polarization” eschews a literal correspondence to the character “pole,” instead reconstructing the concept from a physical standpoint. First, the use of the character “pian” (偏) conveys that natural light initially vibrates with equal probability in all directions; however, after undergoing physical processes such as scattering or reflection by a medium, the direction of light’s vibration ceases to be isotropic and becomes “biased” toward a specific orientation, vividly illustrating the symmetry-breaking of transverse wave oscillation relative to the direction of propagation. Second, the choice of “zhen” (振) underscores that polarization is a manifestation of light’s “wave-like” behavior, rather than the deflection of a particle stream, while also explicitly affirming that light waves are transverse. This approach carries greater physical depth than the Japanese term “katayori” (偏光), which simply denotes “light bias”; for it not only describes the observable phenomenon of “light being biased,” but also articulates the underlying physical principle of the “deviation of the light‑vibration vector.”
IV. The Distinction in Translation Between “Polarization” and “Polarisation”
In English, optical polarization, antenna polarization, and dielectric polarization are all rendered as “polarization,” whereas in Chinese they are deliberately distinguished as “pianzhen” and “jihua.” This distinction arises from the combined influence of physical boundaries and historically established conventions.
The concept of “pole” did not first emerge in optics; rather, it originated in magnetism and electrostatics. In the 18th century, scientists discovered that every magnet possesses two poles, and even if a magnet is broken in half, each fragment still develops its own pair of poles. This property of “dichotomy into two poles” constitutes the most primordial physical picture underlying the term “polarization.” Following the formulation of Coulomb’s law, the French physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb also investigated the distribution of magnetic charges within magnets, describing this state of separation between positive and negative magnetic poles as “polarization.” [17] In the 1830s, while conducting electrical experiments, Michael Faraday discovered that when an insulating material (a dielectric) was placed in an electric field, “some kind of change” occurred within the material, which affected its ability to store electrical charge. [18] Faraday argued that an electric field causes the positive and negative charges within an insulator to separate, turning each molecule into a tiny “magnet” with distinct positive and negative poles—i.e., a dipole. He adopted the familiar natural analogy of magnets having two poles, thereby describing how a dielectric transitions from a nonpolar to a polar state. Furthermore, he borrowed the term “polarization,” coined by Malus, and termed this phenomenon “electric polarization,” marking the first explicit articulation of the concept of dielectric “polarization.” Subsequently, the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz and others introduced electron theory, explicitly demonstrating that polarization arises when an external electric field induces a microscopic displacement of the centers of positive and negative charges within atoms, giving rise to a collective effect in the form of induced dipole moments. [19] From then on, “polarization” became the standard term for describing a situation in which the charge distribution within a material is “separated” or “shifted toward one pole.”
As mentioned earlier, during the late Qing period, Chinese scientific terminology was significantly influenced by Japanese translations. During the Meiji Restoration, when Japan introduced Western science, it rendered “polarization” as “fenji.” In the 1908 edition of the “Physics Glossary” published by the Commercial Press, China adopted the term “fenji”; for example, “polarized current” was translated as “fenji dianliu.” [14] By the 1930s, the National Compilation and Translation Institute had been established and began standardizing physics terminology. [20] At the time, domestic scholars believed that the character “hua” better captured the idea that an object originally devoid of positive and negative poles, under external influence, transforms into a state characterized by distinct positive and negative poles. Accordingly, in the 1934 edition of the “Physics Terminology,” compiled by the National Compilation and Translation Bureau and published by the Commercial Press, [21] , it was established that in electromagnetism the term “polarization” denotes the phenomenon by which dielectrics or magnetic media acquire electric or magnetic polarity. At the same time, to avoid confusion with the optical term “polarization,” a formal distinction was drawn between optical polarization and electromagnetic polarization.
Through the foregoing historical review, we can see that the focus of electrical “polarization” lies in “matter”—that is, the subject is the material itself, and it describes an internal state change in which electric charges separate spatially toward opposite poles. This process occurs “within the material.” In this context, the character “hua” in “polarization” aptly captures the dynamic nature of a transformation induced by an external field, while the character “ji” explicitly points to the two ends or opposing sides in space, precisely corresponding to the physical picture of positive and negative charges separating to form an electric dipole moment. By contrast, the focus of optical “polarization” is on “waves”—the subject being the light wave—and it describes how the orientation of the vibration vector loses uniformity across the wave’s cross‑section. This reflects the distribution of the wave field. Furthermore, from the perspective of the historical evolution of terminological differentiation, although the electromagnetic waves emitted by microwave antennas fully conform to the physical definition of “polarization,” because microwave technology originated in the fields of electrical engineering and radio engineering, early engineers directly adopted the term “polarization” from circuit theory and dielectric physics to describe the directional characteristics of the electric field vectors radiated by antennas (e.g., vertical polarization, circular polarization). To preserve disciplinary continuity, the term “polarization” was reserved for free space and the optical frequency range, whereas in circuits, low‑frequency electromagnetic fields, and within materials, it was termed “polarization.” Although this artificial convention results in a single English term being rendered by two distinct Chinese terms, it also effectively prevents confusion between the optical description of “vibration direction” and the electrical description of “charge separation” at the microscopic level—precisely the opposite of the frequent situation in modern scientific terminology translation, where one Chinese rendering corresponds to multiple Western terms and the translation fails to convey the intended meaning. Thus, despite their shared etymological origin and identical root word, “polarization” and “polarization” represent a remarkably foresighted distinction in the history of standardized Chinese scientific nomenclature.
V. Conclusion
The term “polarization” marked a milestone in humanity’s breakthrough of intuitive notions of symmetry and in the recognition of light’s transverse wave nature. The ingenious Chinese term “polarization,” meanwhile, not only draws a clear distinction from “polarization” in the context of charge displacement but also uses “pian” to signify the selective choice of vibration direction and “zhen” to affirm an understanding of light’s wave‑like essence—thus achieving a perfect synthesis of physical precision and the expressive beauty of the Chinese language. Today, from the liquid‑crystal displays in our hands to deep‑sea submersibles navigating beneath shimmering waves, polarization technology, with its subtle yet profound power, is profoundly shaping the cutting edge of both everyday life and national security.
[Special Note] Portions of the first, second, and third paragraphs in Section 3 of this article previously appeared in the first piece on “interference.” To ensure completeness and readability, these passages have been retained; your understanding is appreciated.
References:
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[8] Newton, author; translated by Zhou Yueming et al. Opticks [M]. Beijing University Press, 2014.
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[10] Malus, E. L. (1809). On a property of reflected light. Memoirs of Physics and Chemistry of the Arcueil Society, 2, 143–158.
[11] Original work by Tian Dali (British), interpreted orally by Jin Kaili (American), and transcribed into Chinese by Zhao Yuanyi (Qing). “Optics” [M], published by the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau in Shanghai, 1876.
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Author Introduction
The Physics Optics Teaching and Research Interest Group aims to enrich the curriculum of “Physics Optics” and spark students’ creative inspiration by integrating interdisciplinary approaches—spanning optics, linguistics, the history of science and technology, and the philosophy of science—and incorporating cutting-edge developments in these fields. Currently, the group includes faculty members such as Associate Professor Jiang Man, Researcher Zhou Pu, Associate Researcher Zhang Yuqiu, and Associate Researcher Ye Jun, all from the Academy of Frontier Interdisciplinary Sciences at National University of Defense Technology. Associate Professor Jiang Man and Researcher Zhou Pu are the primary contributors to this paper: Jiang Man wrote the main body, while Zhou Pu offered constructive suggestions for refinement. Zhang Yuqiu and Ye Jun also made significant contributions to its completion. We warmly welcome interested faculty and students to join the Physics Optics Teaching and Research Interest Group! (Please contact: jiangman7@126.com / zhoupu203@163.com)
Original article link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/rbHos4kaVBYKUZWhq_ttAA
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