Question

When two parallel white rays pass through the outer edges of a converging glass lens, chromatic aberration will cause colors to appear on the screen in what order, from the top down?

A. red, blue, blue, red
B. blue, red, red, blue
C. blue, blue, red, red
D. red, blue, red, blue
E. blue, red, blue, red

Answer 1

When two parallel white rays pass through a converging glass lens, chromatic aberration results in blue (violet) light being focused closer to the lens than red, thus the colors will appear as blue, blue, red, red from top to bottom.

Step-by-step explanation:

Chromatic aberration occurs in lenses because the index of refraction varies with the wavelength of light. This means that when white light passes through a lens, each color is bent, or refracted, by a different amount. Violet light, having a shorter wavelength, is refracted more than red light, which means it is focused closer to the lens. Therefore, when two parallel white rays pass through the outer edges of a converging glass lens, the chromatic aberration will cause colors to appear on the screen in the order of violet (blue) first and then red. This results in the following sequence from top to bottom: blue, blue, red, red.