The problem of colour spectrum and prism

ryan1992hk

2007-03-08 5:30 am

When a beam of white light passes through a prism, why will it bend into a range of colours called colour spectrum?

Will the white light be bent if we replace the prism with another transparent solid? Or even other kinds of solids?

Is it a must for the prism to be a triangular one?

回答 (1)

Hong Kiu

2007-03-08 9:00 am

✔ 最佳答案

the visible light that we can see is a mixture of continous spectrum
that means it's a combination of EM waves with different frequency
for EM waves that with different frequency,there are differnet refractive index for the same transparent solid
so after entered the prism EM waves with different colours are bent to different directions
when they come out of the prism, a colour spectrum is formed

it's not a must to have a triangular prism
just like the rainbow we see is formed by tiny water spots
it's spherical

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