History thumb|The two asymmetric crystal forms, dextrorotatory and levorotatory, of tartaric acid. thumb|Sucrose solution concentration measuring experiment, demonstrating optical rotation. The rotation of the orientation of linearly polarized light was first observed in 1811 in quartz by French physicist François Arago.Arago (1811) "Mémoire sur une modification remarquable qu'éprouvent les rayons lumineux dans leur passage à travers certains corps diaphanes et sur quelques autres nouveaux phénomènes d'optique" (Memoir on a remarkable modification that light rays experience during their passage through certain translucent substances and on some other new optical phenomena), Mémoires de la classe des sciences mathématiques et physiques de l'Institut Impérial de France, 1st part : 93–134. In 1820, the English astronomer Sir John F.W. Herschel discovered that different individual quartz crystals, whose crystalline structures are mirror images of each other (see illustration), rotate linear polarization by equal amounts but in opposite directions.Herschel, J.F.W. (1820) "On the rotation impressed by plates of rock crystal on the planes of polarization of the rays of light, as connected with certain peculiarities in its crystallization," Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 1 : 43–51. Jean Baptiste Biot also observed the rotation of the axis of polarization in certain liquidsBiot, J. B. (1815) "Phenomene de polarisation successive, observés dans des fluides homogenes" (Phenomenon of successive polarization, observed in homogeneous fluids), Bulletin des Sciences, par la Société Philomatique de Paris, 190–192. and vapors of organic substances such as turpentine.Biot (1818 & 1819) "Extrait d'un mémoire sur les rotations que certaines substances impriment aux axes de polarisation des rayons lumineux" (Extract from a memoir on the [optical] rotations that certain substances impress on the axes of polarization of light rays), Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 2nd series, 9 : 372–389; 10 : 63–81; for Biot's experiments with turpentine vapor (vapeur d'essence de térébenthine), see pp. 72–81. In 1822, Augustin-Jean Fresnel found that optical rotation could be explained as a species of birefringence: whereas previously known cases of birefringence were due to the different speeds of light polarized in two perpendicular planes, optical rotation was due to the different speeds of right-hand and left-hand circularly polarized light.A. Fresnel, "Mémoire sur la double réfraction que les rayons lumineux éprouvent en traversant les aiguilles de cristal de roche suivant les directions parallèles à l'axe", read 9 December 1822; printed in H. de Senarmont, E. Verdet, and L. Fresnel (eds.), Oeuvres complètes d'Augustin Fresnel, vol. 1 (1866), pp.731–751; translated as "Memoir on the double refraction that light rays undergo in traversing the needles of quartz in the directions parallel to the axis", , 2021 (open access); especially §13. Simple polarimeters have been used since this time to measure the concentrations of simple sugars, such as glucose, in solution. In fact one name for D-glucose (the biological isomer), is dextrose, referring to the fact that it causes linearly polarized light to rotate to the right or dexter side. In a similar manner, levulose, more commonly known as fructose, causes the plane of polarization to rotate to the left. Fructose is even more strongly levorotatory than glucose is dextrorotatory. Invert sugar syrup, commercially formed by the hydrolysis of sucrose syrup to a mixture of the component simple sugars, fructose, and glucose, gets its name from the fact that the conversion causes the direction of rotation to "invert" from right to left.
History thumb|The two asymmetric crystal forms, dextrorotatory and levorotatory, of tartaric acid. thumb|Sucrose solution concentration measuring experiment, demonstrating optical rotation. The rotation of the orientation of linearly polarized light was first observed in 1811 in quartz by French physicist François Arago.Arago (1811) "Mémoire sur une modification remarquable qu'éprouvent les rayons lumineux dans leur passage à travers certains corps diaphanes et sur quelques autres nouveaux phénomènes d'optique" (Memoir on a remarkable modification that light rays experience during their passage through certain translucent substances and on some other new optical phenomena), Mémoires de la classe des sciences mathématiques et physiques de l'Institut Impérial de France, 1st part : 93–134. In 1820, the English astronomer Sir John F.W. Herschel discovered that different individual quartz crystals, whose crystalline structures are mirror images of each other (see illustration), rotate linear polarization by equal amounts but in opposite directions.Herschel, J.F.W. (1820) "On the rotation impressed by plates of rock crystal on the planes of polarization of the rays of light, as connected with certain peculiarities in its crystallization," Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 1 : 43–51 Jean Baptiste Biot also observed the rotation of the axis of polarization in certain liquidsBiot, J. B. (1815) "Phenomene de polarisation successive, observés dans des fluides homogenes" (Phenomenon of successive polarization, observed in homogeneous fluids), Bulletin des Sciences, par la Société Philomatique de Paris, 190–192. and vapors of organic substances such as turpentine.Biot (1818 & 1819) "Extrait d'un mémoire sur les rotations que certaines substances impriment aux axes de polarisation des rayons lumineux" (Extract from a memoir on the [optical] rotations that certain substances impress on the axes of polarization of light rays), Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 2nd series, 9 : 372–389; 10 : 63–81; for Biot's experiments with turpentine vapor (vapeur d'essence de térébenthine), see pp. 72–81. In 1822, Augustin-Jean Fresnel found that optical rotation could be explained as a species of birefringence: whereas previously known cases of birefringence were due to the different speeds of light polarized in two perpendicular planes, optical rotation was due to the different speeds of right-hand and left-hand circularly polarized light.A. Fresnel, "Mémoire sur la double réfraction que les rayons lumineux éprouvent en traversant les aiguilles de cristal de roche suivant les directions parallèles à l'axe", read 9 December 1822; printed in H. de Senarmont, E. Verdet, and L. Fresnel (eds.), Oeuvres complètes d'Augustin Fresnel, vol. 1 (1866), pp.731–751; translated as "Memoir on the double refraction that light rays undergo in traversing the needles of quartz in the directions parallel to the axis", , 2021 (open access); especially §13. Simple polarimeters have been used since this time to measure the concentrations of simple sugars, such as glucose, in solution. In fact one name for D-glucose (the biological isomer), is dextrose, referring to the fact that it causes linearly polarized light to rotate to the right or dexter side. In a similar manner, levulose, more commonly known as fructose, causes the plane of polarization to rotate to the left. Fructose is even more strongly levorotatory than glucose is dextrorotatory. Invert sugar syrup, commercially formed by the hydrolysis of sucrose syrup to a mixture of the component simple sugars, fructose, and glucose, gets its name from the fact that the conversion causes the direction of rotation to "invert" from right to left.