When we place a glass prism in the path of a narrow beam of white light, a spectrum is obtained. What happens when a second identical prism is placed in an inverted position with respect to the first prism? Draw a labelled ray diagram to illustrate it.

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.

Explanation

The phenomenon of splitting white light into its components colours (violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red) while passing through a prism is known as the Dispersion of light.

The cause of the dispersion of light through the prism is because white light is a mixture of seven different colours and they get refracted (bend) at different angles in the prism medium. So they get separated.

Tutorialspoint

Simply Easy Learning

Updated on: 10-Oct-2022

544 Views

Kickstart Your Career

Get certified by completing the course

Get Started