Prisms

A prism is a special shape made of clear glass or plastic. It usually has three flat sides and looks like a long triangle. When light passes through a prism, something amazing happens. The white light breaks apart into all the colors of the rainbow.

Splitting Light

White light from the sun looks like one color, but it is really made of many colors mixed together. A prism bends each color by a different amount. Red bends the least and violet bends the most. This spreads the colors out so we can see them. The colors that come out are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

Isaac Newton's Discovery

A scientist named Isaac Newton studied prisms over 300 years ago. He showed that white light was made of many colors. Before him, people thought the prism added the colors. Newton proved the colors were already in the light. This was a big discovery for science.

Fun Facts

• A rainbow is made when raindrops act like tiny prisms in the sky.
• Some prisms are used in submarine periscopes to look above the water.
• Prisms are used in binoculars to help you see far away.

Did You Know?

The band of colors that comes out of a prism is called a spectrum, and every rainbow shows the same order of colors.