When light travels through a prism, it would disperse into the different colours of light. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. The white light would disperse into a visible spectrum of light, containing the colours of the rainbow. This is because of the refraction of the lights. The lights are refracted at different angles, resulting in the spectrum.
This made me wonder, why would it be refracted at different angles?
This is due to the different wavelengths. As red has a greater wavelength of 700mm, it would travel faster than the other colours, and thus be refracted least. While indigo has a wavelength of 400mm, it travels the slowest, and thus be refracted more. This would result in the dispersion of light. As light passes the different mediums of air to glass, the reduce in speed causes refraction. At different speeds, the different colour lights would be refracted at different angles, resulting in a visible spectrum.
Dispersion of white light
Different wavelengths resulting in the angle of refraction
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