Thursday, February 18, 2010

Why does the light make the colors of the rainbow when bouncing through clear glass?

The glass [a crystal prism is best for this] breaks the rays of light into a rainbow 'spectrum' [which is always in the same order...check it out: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet]. Imagine the crystal is a kind of sieve or strainer that separates the components of light into all its colours. A sky rainbow is sunlight filtered through raindrops or mist [a kind of watery crystal, right?] but you can make your own rainbow with sunlight and a piece of crystal glass. The spectrum stays in the same order no matter what.Why does the light make the colors of the rainbow when bouncing through clear glass?
This is because the glass bends different wavelengths of light at different rates.





What we perceive as white light is actually a mish-mash of light rays, each with a different wavelength and hence a different color. When these rays pass through a refractive material -- like the glass in a prism or a bunch water droplets in a mist like you'd find after rain or near a waterfall -- the shorter, more bluish wavelengths are bent more steeply while the longer, more reddish wavelengths bend more slightly.





The net effect is that all the colors are sorted from long to short wavelengths. Our brains tend to pick out colors we recognize like red, orange, green, etc. But if you look closely, you''l see the rainbow is actually a continuum; one color blends smoothly into the next.Why does the light make the colors of the rainbow when bouncing through clear glass?
White light, such as sunlight, is actually a mixture of all of the colors of light. Light has a wave form and each color of light has a different wavelength. When the light encounters a prism, it enters in such a way that it refracts. This means that the prism causes the light to bend and change direction a little. Different wavelengths bend different amounts. Of the visible light, red bends the least and purple bends the most. So the prism bends the light in such a way that it spreads out into all of the colors that it's made up of. The human eye perceives these colors as red, orange, yellow, green,blue, indigo, and violet, aka purple.
Clear glass acts like a prism (assuming this clear glass isnt like a window, it's more like a pyramid). white light is actually all of the colors of the visible spectrum combined. so when white light passes through a prism, the light is separated into a rainbow.
the light is like a prism and it breaks the light into all the colors, visibly speaking of course.
When light hits the glass of a prism it slows down. Depending on the kind of glass the prism can refract the light, bending it, and spreading out the colors that make up ';white'; light. So you see the shorter wavelengths, like blue at one end of the spread of colors, and the longer wavelengths like red at the other end.
  • hair styling
  • No comments:

    Post a Comment