I have some polarized eyeglasses. They are linearly polarized and behave as one my expect for light that is glanced off a horizontal surface.

I just received a new pair of supposedly polarized glasses. However, they don't behave as expected.
1) no real effect on horizontally polarized light (ie - glanced reflection)
2) no blacking effect when paired with other known (linearly) polarized lenses. This works with other polarized glasses I have, just not w/ the new pair.

There is some weird affect when I rotate the new glasses against my computer monitor. Color changes from yellow to white (lenses are slightly yellow tinted).

I don't think these lenses are polarized, at least not linearly polarized. Could they be circular polarized like camera lens filters? Do they do circular polarization for eyeglasses? What would be the behavior if I rotated circular polarized lenses against linearly polarized lenses - any blacking?

They could be placed on the wrong axis. If the are polarized they will black at some point. Just turn the ones that you know are polarized in a circle to see if at some point they black. More than likely a manufacturing error.

My circular photographic polarizers are no different than linear polarizers except that you can rotate them in their mount. They are all neutral grey. They are effective on SLR Cameras because you can rotate the filter to kill the reflected glare from worst source by observation.

Some filters (variable neutral density) have two linear polarizers, one of which can be rotated against the other to variably block light, again most effective on SLR Cameras.

Sent the lenses back to be replaced with real polarized lens. As far as I could tell, and optometrist agrees, the lenses were only tinted and not polarized. I paid for it so I want it.

Okay, I've since learned that polarization efficacy is dependent upon tint color.

Anybody know why this would be the case?

I don’t think that is true. Polarization is orientating light on one plain. So it is either polarized or it’s not. I know that there can be some light that is not oriented so the polarization can be less, but it’s not color dependent, more dependent on by what means it’s oriented.

That’s what I thought. But there is info that suggests efficacy is much lower for yellow tint than for other colors, with neutral grey providing the highest efficacy as expected.

In my yellow tinted lenses, I can see some color artifacts related to the polarization axis but the efficacy is almost zero. Hard to tell from just tinted lenses. Why this is the case I’m still trying to understand.

Lens manufacturer confirms this as expected behavior but didn’t explain why.

I think it has to do w/ the type of polarizer used for glasses - perhaps the dichroic properties of polariod polarizers. For yellow tinted lenses which blocks red/blue light, perhaps yellow light isn't affected much by the type of polarizer used for eyeglasses; red and/or blue are much more affected by these polarizers.

I dunno - I'm still trying to learn here.