National League for Nursing (NLN) Science Practice Exam

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White light enters a prism and is broken up into the colors of the rainbow. This phenomenon is called:

reflection.
difraction.
dispersion.
refraction.

The correct answer is: dispersion.

The phenomenon of white light entering a prism and being broken up into the colors of the rainbow is known as dispersion. Dispersion occurs because different wavelengths of light are refracted, or bent, by different amounts when they pass through the prism. As a result, the various colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—separate and spread out to form a spectrum. While refraction involves the bending of light as it passes from one medium to another (such as air to glass), dispersion specifically refers to the separation of light into its constituent colors due to the varying degrees of refraction for different wavelengths. This is why the term dispersion is the most appropriate choice in this context.