Mondo Knows Facts
Newton split white light with a prism
A glass prism spreads sunlight into a rainbow because each colour bends differently In 1666 Isaac Newton passed sunlight through a prism and saw the familiar spectrum. A second prism recombined the colours into white, showing that they had been separated rather than created by the glass. His experiment overturned the idea that colour came from the material itself. It sits in Mondo's science collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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A rainbow forms opposite the SunSunlight bends and reflects inside raindrops to make an arc around the antisolar pointRayleigh scattering makes the daytime sky blueAir molecules scatter short blue wavelengths far more strongly than long red onesA polarising filter blocks half of ordinary lightThe filter passes only waves oscillating along one axis and absorbs the restHerschel found infrared beyond the red endA thermometer placed past the red light of a spectrum recorded the most heatThe double slit experiment shows light interferingTwo narrow slits produce alternating bright and dark bands on a screenThe photoelectric effect needs a minimum frequencyWeak blue light ejects electrons from a metal that intense red light cannot touch
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Tags: light, optics, history
Newton split white light with a prism: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- A glass prism spreads sunlight into a rainbow because each colour bends differently. The figure is taken from Royal Society, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a science fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Science shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.