Book excerpt: Polarized Light, Second Edition explores polarized light, its production, and its use, facilitating self-study without prior knowledge of Maxwell's equations. This comprehensive second edition includes more than 2500 thoroughly updated figures and equations for easier understanding and application across various industries. It features new chapters on polarization by refraction and reflection, polarization elements, anisotropic materials, Stokes polarimetry, Mueller matrix polarimetry, the mathematics of the Mueller matrix. This edition also offers updated and expanded material on the derivation of the Fresnel equations with plots of the magnitude and phase of the reflection coefficients.