What is the cause of dispersion of white light through a glass prism? Draw a ray diagram to show the path of light when two identical glass prisms are arranged together in inverted position with respect to each other and a narrow beam of white light is allowed to fall obliquely on one of the faces of the prisms.


The cause of dispersion of white light through a glass prism, is due to the different speeds of the colours contained by the white light. When white light consisting of seven colors (violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red) falls on a glass prism, then each of its colours gets refracted by a different angle and spread out, resulting in the formation of a spectrum.

Explanation

When a glass prism is placed in the path of a narrow beam of white light, it gets dispersed into its seven constituent colours and a spectrum is obtained. Now, when a second identical prism is placed in an inverted position with respect to the first prism, it recombines the spectrum obtained by the first prism and a beam of white light is obtained again.

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Updated on: 10-Oct-2022

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