// Activities, Books Online, Global Systems Science, Investigations

CC2.1. Two Prisms

Climate Change cover

{ Climate Change Contents } { All GSS Books }

Two prisms arranged to produce white light
Can you put two prisms together to produce white light?

If you can borrow two prisms, you might try splitting a beam of light into its different colors, then combining the light again into a single beam—just as Isaac Newton did more than 300 years ago.

  • Use the Sun or an electric light bulb for your source of light.
  • Put a slit in a sheet of paper to create a single beam of light.
  • Align the prism and then the second prism to create your spectrum and then turn the spectrum back into white light.