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"I am first of all not a science fiction writer … I write, I suppose, what the Latin Americans call magic realism."
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This device has a very sixties kind of name and function; it is like Polaroid sunglasses for your house.
Here's another quote:
Some buildings have glass that is designed to let a certain amount of light (and energy) enter the building. I don't know of any buildings that allow the adjustment of light entry.
Edwin Land founded the Polaroid Corporation and created one of the last century's great brands, the Polaroid Land Camera. Land invented the first commercial use for polarizing material in 1929.
Polarizing filters contain long molecules that allow the transverse electromagnetic waves of one direction to pass while absorbing the waves vibrating in the other direction. Here's a way to visualize how it works. Think of the slots in a picket fence. Now think of a tall wavy line drawn on a big piece of poster board. If you orient the poster board so it is parallel with the slots in the picket fence, the "light wave" can go through. If you orient the poster board so it is parallel with the ground, the "light wave" cannot go through the slots.
Polarizing material is like a picket fence to light waves; only some of the light can pass through. That's how your polaroid sunglasses work; they filter incident light.
In his 1954 novel The Houses of Iszm, Jack Vance references a polarized window directly:
The window depolarized, and daylight entered the room. Farr awoke, sat up in bed, and reached for a menu.
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