Question

Prisms and diffraction gratings can both?

1) change sunlight into a single color.
2) invert a light ray's frequency and wavelength
3) break the incoming light beam into its constituent colors.
4) slow down light to a few meters per second, if used back-to-back.

Answer 1

The correct answer is option 3) break the incoming light beam into its constituent colors..

Step-by-step explanation:

Prisms and diffraction gratings are two devices that interact with light and have the ability to break the incoming light beam into its constituent colors. This process is known as dispersion and is facilitated by the fact that light waves of different frequencies (color) have different refractive indices when passing through materials such as glass or plastic. Prisms achieve this by refraction, bending light to different degrees depending on its wavelength as it passes through the triangular glass shape.

On the other hand, diffraction gratings create an interference pattern by having light pass through many evenly spaced slits, scattering the light into its component wavelengths and producing sharper spectral lines than double-slit arrangements.

Diffraction gratings are particularly useful in spectroscopes and monochromators for spectroscopic analysis of light, such as analyzing emitted light from heated substances or assessing biological samples. In contrast, slowing down light to a few meters per second or inverting a light ray's frequency and wavelength are not possible outcomes for these devices.