How do prisms work?

Question

I made a prism with three microscope slides tapped together and I was wondering HOW it worked....

Answer 1

Prisms refract light.  That just means the light can be broken down into it's component wavelengths.  I could explain in greater detail, but Wiki does a better job of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prism_%28op...

Here's a really cool little tool too:

http://www.phy.hk/wiki/englishhtm/Refrac...

Answer 2

all a prism does is refract light. white light is composed of many different frequency of frequencies and wavelengths and a different frequency will correspond to a different color of light. When the light travels through the prism, it slows the light down and will refract it. Each frequency that makes up the white light slows down differently from each other, and thus refract at different angles. Which is why the rainbow is always in the order or red, orange, yellow, green, blue, etc. because red light travels slower than violet light when it travels through the prism, it will refract at a higher angle than violet light

Answer 3

When light goes at angle from one transparent substance to another (such as between air and water or air and glass) the light bends. The bending is called refraction. Lenses work by refraction.

It is easy to see refraction: fill something with water and stick a pencil in it. When you look at the pencil, the light from the part of the pencil in the water is refracted and it makes the pencil look bent.

Now, "white" light is actually made up of lots of colors (technically all colors) and different colors bend different amounts. In the case of a prism, when light goes from air to glass, the light refracts and each of the colors bend a different amount, separating them slightly. When the light comes out of the prism, the light refracts again and the colors become even more separated.

You might be wondering: why doesn't a window separate light into all the colors?

The reason is the shape of the glass. A prism has sides that are at angles to each other causing the separation of the colors to be increased, but the sides of a window are parallel. When the light exits the glass of a window, the second refraction actually puts the colors all back together.

Answer 4

/\violet---------------------------

      -------------------->----------/   \indigo--------------------------

        Light ray                      /      \green--------------------------

                                            /        \yellow---------------------------    

                                           /          \orange--------------------------

                                          /            \red-------------------------------

                                         /-----------\   The light splits into seven colours after diffraction.        \

                                         1) Let it be your prism  

For details research on refraction of light.