Newton's Prism Experiment Unveiled Sunlight Spectrum

The phenomenon of splitting white sunlight into its constituent colors, forming a spectrum, was first systematically demonstrated using a glass prism by Isaac Newton.

Pioneering Light Dispersion

• In the 17th century, Isaac Newton conducted experiments showing that white light entering a glass prism was refracted and dispersed into different colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet).
• He further demonstrated that passing this separated colored light through another prism did not change the colors, but recombining the colors with a second prism could recreate white light.
• This established that white light is composed of all the colors of the spectrum.

While others might have observed light passing through glass, Newton was the first to rigorously investigate and explain the dispersion of sunlight into a spectrum using a glass prism.