Light rays travel at different speeds through different substances. When light moves from one material to another, the change in speed as it slows down or speeds up causes the light rays to bend. This bending is called refraction. Some substances, such as water or certain shapes of glass, can bend light rays so that the white light we normally separated into the colors of the rainbow; a spectrum.
What is a spectrum?
White light (daylight) can be split up using a prism to form a spectrum. A prism is a block of glass with a triangular cross-section. The light waves are refracted as they enter and leave the prism. The shorter the wavelength of the light, the more it is refracted. As a result, red light is refracted least and violet light is refracted the most (meaning, red light has a shorter wavelength, while violet light is longer), causing the colored light to spread out to form a spectrum.
What is an electromagnetic spectrum?
Visible light waves are the only electromagnetic waves we can see. We see these waves as the colors of the rainbow. Each color has a different wavelength. Red has the longest wavelength and violet has the shortest wavelength. When all the waves are seen together, they make white light.When white light shines through a prism, the white light is broken apart into the colors of the visible light spectrum. Water vapor in the atmosphere can also break apart wavelengths creating a rainbow.
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