
The seven colors in the spectrum are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet respectively. When a white light beam is passed through a prism, a band of seven colors are formed is known as spectrum of white light. This difference in the refractive index causes the light having constituent colours of different wavelengths, to be bent at different angles, thus splitting them into those colours spatially.Dispersion is the splitting up of white light into seven colours on passing through a transparent medium like a glass prism. Following the Snell’s Law that defines the formula for angles and their indexes, we can infer that the dispersion is caused due to the nature of the dispersive optical device (Prism) that has a different refractive index than air, the previous medium of propagation. As it travels through the medium, it possesses a certain wavelength, and it tends to travel in a straight line. Light in itself has specific characteristics to it.

Refractive Index (I) variation causes a change in the resultant angle of deviation, thus causing the sunlight to be split spatially, giving out the spectrum of colours. A dispersive glass prism causes this phenomenon due to its refractive index varying with the wavelengths of the individual colours that combine to form the sunlight. What is the dispersion of white light? State its cause?ĭispersion of white light is an optical phenomenon, wherein sunlight/white light that is incident upon glass prism is split into its constituent colours, namely VIBGYOR. The cause for dispersion is that violet has a shorter wavelength, which slows it down more, compared to red light with a longer wavelength that is the least dispersed.Ĥ. The separation of white light into component colours is known as the dispersion of light. White light or sunlight gets dispersed into 7 component colours, VIBGYOR, with violet bending the most, and red bending the least. What is meant by the dispersion of white light? Draw a neat diagram to show the dispersion of white light by a glass prism. This causes light to disperse by a glass prism due to the difference in the medium of propagation.ģ. The colours have different wavelengths that travel at velocities through the transparent prism. The light that falls upon the surface of the prism gets separated into lights of component colours, which is called as Dispersion Of White Light By A Glass Prism. Their difference in wavelength causes them to have different angles of deviation, which is made up of colours with red light bending the least and violet light bends the most.Ģ. White light is made up of constituent colours of light that have their unique refractive indices. How does the dispersion of white light take place when it passes through a glass prism? But the atmospheric particles scatter the light giving blue colour to the sky and a yellow shade to the sun.ġ. For example, The true colour of the sun is white, and the space is black when viewed from a point outside the Earth’s atmosphere.Formula: Assuming that R is the amount of scattering, the equation is: R 14.The law states that the amount of scattering observed is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the wavelength.Rayleigh scattering gives the sky its inherent blue colour. The total atmospheric distance that sunlight needs to travel, before reaching our eyes, scatters the violet light that has low wavelengths, thus only allowing orange and red shades of sunlight.


The light with shorter wavelengths gets scattered to an increased extent, as compared to light with longer wavelengths. The constituent colours have their properties, as they vary based on their sequence in the spectrum. Light has its velocity and frequency at which it travels, as it also has its wavelength.
