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This is a result of the prism material's index of refraction varying with wavelength (dispersion). Generally, longer wavelengths (red) undergo a smaller deviation than shorter wavelengths (blue). The dispersion of white light into colors by a prism led Sir Isaac Newton to conclude that white light consisted of a mixture of different colors.
In a dispersive prism, material dispersion (a wavelength-dependent refractive index) causes different colors to refract at different angles, splitting white light into a spectrum. A compact fluorescent lamp seen through an Amici prism. Dispersion is the phenomenon in which the phase velocity of a wave depends on its frequency. [1]
Original - Schematic animation of a continuous beam of light being dispersed by a prism. The white beam represents many wavelengths of visible light, of which 7 are shown, as they travel through a vacuum with equal speeds c. The prism causes the light to slow down, which bends its path by the process of refraction.
The animation no more conveys the notion that white light is comprised of "white photons" than does simply watching a beam of light from a flashlight. Kieff , if some readers really might come away from the optics article (and this animation) with the notion that there are "white photons," perhaps a better caption could overcome some of these ...
Original – An animation showing how a prism (the triangle) separates different frequencies of white light into a rainbow. Reason Animated vision of light wave separation in a prism, as made famous by Pink Floyd. Assessed as a Quality Image on Commons and featured there as media of the day. Articles in which this image appears
Circular dichroism causes incident linearly polarized light to become elliptically polarized. The two phenomena are closely related, just as are ordinary absorption and dispersion. If the entire optical rotatory dispersion spectrum is known, the circular dichroism spectrum can be calculated, and vice versa.
The name "dispersion relation" originally comes from optics. It is possible to make the effective speed of light dependent on wavelength by making light pass through a material which has a non-constant index of refraction, or by using light in a non-uniform medium such as a waveguide. In this case, the waveform will spread over time, such that ...
Dispersive prisms are used to break up light into its constituent spectral colors because the refractive index depends on wavelength; the white light entering the prism is a mixture of different wavelengths, each of which gets bent slightly differently. Blue light is slowed more than red light and will therefore be bent more than red light.