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10 views

Physics_4_Newtons_experiment

Uploaded by

jeredkarr
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Summerfield WHS Physics 4

Adapted from Fred Bassett The Physics of Light and Visual Experience
Lab #5 Newton’s Color Spectrum

INTRODUCTION: When we shine a beam of white light through a prism, it seems to


break apart into bands of colors just like a rainbow. Sir Isaac Newton was not the first to
notice this, but he did study it extensively. Blocking all light from his study except a small
hole in an outside wall, when the sun shone through in a very directed narrow aperture
beam, he put a prism in its path to observe, measure, and theorize about its nature. We will
undertake a similar study today by directing a narrow beam from our light boxes toward a
3-sided prism and studying what happens.

1) PURPOSE: To observe and measure the effects of passing a narrow beam of incandescent
white light through a glass prism.

2) APPARATUS: Light box with narrow slit cover slide, 12 volt power supply, glass prism,
paper, colored pencils, metric ruler, right angle drafting triangle, calculator.

3) PROCEDURE: (Part 1): Set up the light box and use the single slit cover slide to
project an image onto a screen (vertical sheet of white paper, backed onto a book). Adjust
the lens in the light box until you get a sharp image of the slit. Place a prism in the beam
of light and rotate it until you get a full spectrum of color projected onto the screen (you
may have to move it). Swivel the screen to lengthen the spectrum. Place white paper on
the desk under the beam of light from the light box to the screen.

4) OBSERVATIONS: (Part 1): Draw the light box and mark the ray of “white” light
from the light box across the paper before you insert the prism into its path. Don’t move
the light box once you have marked this source ray. You will be measuring the angles to the
colored beams from this reference ray. Insert the prism into the path of the “white” light
such that you create a splay of colored rays offset to one side from the reference “white” light
beam. Then, using colored pencils, draw the spectrum formed by the colored rays on the
opposite side of the prism. Label each of the different colors that you observe, and measure
the angle of refraction of each band of light as offset from the source white light beam using
a protractor, or, for more accuracy, by measuring from our adjacent reference path (from
the projected point of split in the prism) and then measure down to the bands of colored
light along a line perpendicular to the reference line. By dividing the distance down to the
center of the colored band by 10 (cm), you will have the value of the tangent of the angle.
Use your calculator’s arc tan (tan−1 ) function to convert this tangent value to angle degree
measurement. You can use a table similar in format to the below to present your data in
your report.

Ray Color Distance from split along reference ray (adjacent) Distance from reference ra
Orange 10 cm 9.00
Chartreuse 10 cm 9.30

1
OBSERVATIONS QUESTIONS (Part 1):

a) Which color is bent the most?

b) Which color is bent the least?

5)PROCEDURE: (Part 2): Place a second prism behind the first so that all the colors
pass through it. Swivel it until an image is projected onto the screen.

6)OBSERVATIONS QUESTIONS (Part 2): Describe the image and its colors(s).

a) Where do the colors of the spectrum come from?

b) What does this second part of the experiment show us?

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