In this experiment, water is our prism. A prism un-mixes light back into its original colors of red, green, and blue. You can make prisms out of glass, plastic, water, oil, or anything else you can think of that allows light to zip through.
What’s a prism? Think of a beam of light. It zooms fast on a straight path, until it hits something (like a water drop). As the light goes through the water drop, it changes speed (refraction). The speed change depends on the angle that the light hits the water, and what the drop is made of. (If it was a drop of mineral oil, the light would slow down a bit more.) Okay, so when white light passes through a prism (or water drop), changes speed, and turns colors. So why do we see a rainbow, not just one color coming out the other side?
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