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Dispersion of Light Notes

When white light passes through a glass prism, it is dispersed into the visible color spectrum (VIBGYOR). This occurs because different wavelengths of light are bent at different angles as they pass through the prism. The phenomenon of rainbows is also caused by the dispersion of sunlight through water droplets in the atmosphere, with each raindrop acting as a tiny prism. Atmospheric refraction causes additional effects like making the sun visible up to two minutes before actual sunrise or sunset, and causing stars and planets to appear in slightly different positions than their true locations in the sky.

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Mahesh Gawade
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1K views2 pages

Dispersion of Light Notes

When white light passes through a glass prism, it is dispersed into the visible color spectrum (VIBGYOR). This occurs because different wavelengths of light are bent at different angles as they pass through the prism. The phenomenon of rainbows is also caused by the dispersion of sunlight through water droplets in the atmosphere, with each raindrop acting as a tiny prism. Atmospheric refraction causes additional effects like making the sun visible up to two minutes before actual sunrise or sunset, and causing stars and planets to appear in slightly different positions than their true locations in the sky.

Uploaded by

Mahesh Gawade
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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DISPERSION OF LIGHT, ATMOSPHERIC REFRACTION: NOTES

Dispersion of White Light by Glass Prism


When light falls on the prism it splits the incident light into band of colours.
The sequence of colours observed are VIBGYOR (Violet, Indigo, Blue,
Green, Yellow, Orange and Red). This band of colour is known
as Spectrum. So, this splitting of incident light into different colours is
known as Dispersion. This splitting is due to bending of light rays at
different angles. Violet light bends most whereas red light bends least.
The phenomenon of rainbow is also due to dispersion of light.

Fig.3. Dispersion of White Light through Prism


The band of these seven colours formed because of dispersion of light is
known as Spectrum.
Total Internal Reflection
When a light passes from denser to rarer medium and angle of incidence
is greater than critical angle, the light will reflect in the denser medium.
This is known as Total Internal Reflection.
Condition for Total Internal Reflection
 Light should pass from denser to rarer medium

 Angle of incidence should be greater than the critical angle.


Critical angle is defined as angle of incidence for which angle of refraction
is 90 degrees
Atmospheric Refraction
Rainbow: It is an example of dispersion (Spectrum formed by dispersion
of sunlight). “It is formed due to dispersion of white sunlight by raindrops
in the atmosphere. Each raindrop acts as a tiny glass prism. Rainbow is
always formed opposite to the sun. White light enters these raindrops,
different colour rays are refracted through different angles due to which
the rainbow is formed.

Atmospheric Refraction

It is due to different layers of atmosphere having varying densities.


Upper ones are rarer and layers close to Earth's surface are denser.
Twinkling of stars and apparent position.

When light from a star passes through the atmosphere, they mix
continuously. So when the star is in line of sight, it is visible and when
out of sight, it is not visible, so they appear to twinkle. But planets do not
twinkle.
Planets are very close to us due to which the size of apparent image is
so large which falls outside the line of sight due to which they do not
twinkle. The sun appears bigger during sunset and sunrise.
During sunset or sunrise, the rays of light travel through maximum
length of the atmosphere. Reflection is maximum. Hence, apparent
image is closer to eyes and appears bigger.

Q. Why the sun is visible to us about 2 minutes earlier than the


actual sunrise or sunset?
A. The sun is visible to us about 2 minutes earlier than the actual sunrise
or sunset due to atmospheric refraction, the sun is seen 2 min earlier
than its sunrise, when it comes close to the horizon.

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