One of the most important experiments on light was made by Isaac Newton. He was the greatest of all English men of science. He discovered that sunshine (white light) is made up of many colors. Over 300 years ago, Sir Isaac Newton passed a beam of white light through a prism. A prism is a triangular piece of glass, which allows light to spread out into a band of six colors. These colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. Newton then sent this light through a second prism where the light became white once again. What did Sir Isaac Newton do? He first took the white light apart and then he put it back together again.

The most common example of a spectrum is the rainbow created in nature.

The rainbow is caused by sunshine (white light) shining on water droplets that are in the air just after a summer shower. Thousands of these water droplets break up the light, just like Sir Isaac Newton's prism. Can you make a rainbow? Of course! Make your own rainbow by turning on th ...more

You know that light is made up of a collection of many colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. That is why a prism can take in white light on one side and produce its own mini-rainbow on the other side. To understand rainbows, you have to start by understanding what is happening inside a prism to let it separate white light into its colors.

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