In the leftmost figure above, the two orthogonal (perpendicular) components are in phase.

In the middle figure, the two orthogonal components have exactly the same amplitude and are exactly ninety degrees out of phase.

In many types of media, electromagnetic waves may be decomposed into two orthogonal components that encounter different propagation effects.

In the latter case, one species measures all six orthogonal components of polarization, and is believed to have optimal polarization vision.

The orthogonal components are now readily identified.

Therefore, two orthogonal components of angular momentum cannot be simultaneously known or measured, except in special cases such as .

Given the symmetry of circularly polarized light, we could have in fact selected any other two orthogonal components and found the same phase relationship between them.

For two orthogonal components of the total angular momentum operator of an object:

It can be resolved into any two orthogonal components.

In the middle figure, the two orthogonal components have the same amplitudes and are 90 out of phase.