Newton introduced a converging lens after the prism which mixed the colors to achieve white light again. These colors were quite different from any found in the naturally occurring spectrum. Newton experimented further to block out some colors and recombining others, creating colored mixtures of light. In continuing to experiment, he found that by introducing a converging lens after the prism, the lens would mix the colors and white light was achieved once more. White we now know from Newton, reflects and contains all the other colors within it, and black absorbs all the light. At either end of this visible spectrum is white and black. This is only a tiny portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, which ranges from high energy x – rays to low energy radio waves. What we can see is called the visible spectrum. These colors he identified as Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.Įach hue is today thought to correspond to a portion of the range of wavelengths of radiant energy that can be distinguished by the human eye. Picture Above – The Electromagnetic Spectrum Picture Above – Newton’s experiment showing a ray of light traveling through a prism, being refracted and emerging as a spreading beam of multi-colored light.įrom these observations of light emerging from a prism, Newton concluded that white sunlight was a mixture of different types of light, with each being of a single pure color and that each color was refracted (bent) at different degrees, violet by the most and red by the least. On doing this, the ray of light was refracted (bent) on traveling through the prism and emerged as a spreading beam of multicolored light, the colors of the rainbow and in the same order, were seen on the white wall beyond. Isaac Newton set up an experiment in 1666, using a hole in a window shade to admit a ray of daylight into a darkened room, where a glass prism was placed so that the ray would pass through it. Today we can understand the colors of light and the color spectrum, through Isaac Newton’s fascination with the behavior of sunlight passing through a prism, The Color Spectrum – and The Colors of Light
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