What quantity did you change?
Labs / Physics
Prism Dispersion
Drag anywhere to aim the white beam into the prism. Each color bends by a slightly different amount because glass has a higher refractive index for violet than for red — so the beam fans out into a spectrum on the screen. Change the glass, the apex angle, and the incidence to see the rainbow spread and shift.
Labs / Physics / Prism Dispersion
Prism Dispersion
Drag anywhere to aim the white beam into the prism. Each color bends by a slightly different amount because glass has a higher refractive index for violet than for red — so the beam fans out into a spectrum on the screen. Change the glass, the apex angle, and the incidence to see the rainbow spread and shift.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Physics explains how changes in forces, energy, motion, and matter produce results we can measure. This model lets you test one part of that relationship at a time.
Explore
Try the model
red δ 0°violet δ 0°spread Δ 0°
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- Push the dispersion slider up. Which color swings the most — red or violet — and why?
- Switch to Diamond. Where did the light go, and what is stopping it from leaving the glass?
- Flip on “single wavelength.” If light were only one color, would a prism make any rainbow at all?
- Widen the apex angle. Does a fatter prism spread the colors more, or less?
- Drag the beam to graze the face at a steep angle. What happens to the whole spectrum as the incidence grows?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Name the quantity you changed, the quantity that responded, and the physical rule connecting them. Use a readout or visible change as evidence.
Check
Before you leave
What measurable result changed?
Which physical idea connects them?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.