Final answer:
Sir Isaac Newton was the English scientist who observed that a ray of light passing through a prism is refracted into the visible spectrum, forming the basis of modern color theory. This phenomenon is called dispersion. Newton's findings in 1672 marked a significant advancement in our understanding of light and color.
Step-by-step explanation:
The English scientist who discovered that light is the source of visible color, and demonstrated that a ray of light passing through a prism is refracted into the visible spectrum, was Sir Isaac Newton. Newton's experiments in the seventeenth century showed that when sunlight is passed through a prism, it separates into all the colors of the rainbow, an effect known as dispersion. This laid the foundation for modern color theory and the understanding of light's nature.
In 1672, Newton presented his findings to the Royal Society, illustrating that white light is composed of various colors. This process is demonstrated by the passage of light through a prism, where different wavelengths of light are bent by different amounts, resulting in a spectrum of colors from red to violet, with violet bending the most. Newton's interpretation of light as particles was contested by later scientists who supported the wave theory, and eventually, the discovery of wave-particle duality superseded Newton's corpuscular theory.
The discovery and documentation of the visible spectrum by Newton, and the further development of theories about light's characteristics, have been fundamental to the fields of physics and optics, influencing both theoretical and applied sciences.