A prism separates white light into its component colors because the different colors have what???10POINTS

little explanation

different wavelength
different frequency

hope that's little enough

the different colors have a different index of refraction. According to Cauchy's equation, the index of refraction (n) changes as a function of frequency. These are small changes for most materials but they can easily be observed.

[index of refraction] ~= A + B*[frequency]^(-2)

where the A and B are material properties that are determined experimentally.

The difference in index of refraction changes the angle that light is refracted through a material by snells law.

sin(w1)/sin(w2) = n2/n2

where w1 is the angle the light hits a boundary, w2 is the refracted angle, n2 is the index of refraction of the second material and n1 is the index of refraction of the initial medium.

Since n2 and n1 are functions of wavelength, its easy to see how different wavelengths can be refracted through different angles, effectively separating light into its various components.

they all have different wavelengths. each colour is a different frequency of light. Because we can only see so much of the light spectrum we can only see the colours of the rainbow. increase or decrease the frequency and you will see different colours. think of it as notes on a piano. every key wil play a different frequency of sound.

try-

http://library.thinkquest.org/13405/opti…

http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/re…