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Prisms are also used to reflect light. Pairs of prisms are used inside binoculars to shorten the tubes of the binoculars. Without the
prisms to bend the light back on itself, binoculars would have to be as long as telescopes.
R
Rainbow
Curved bands of coloured light produced when the sun shines
on raindrops falling from a cloud
or passes through water droplets
in mist and fog. Rainbows are produced by the way that the sunlight is bent as it passes through the drops. As light enters a drop of water, the water bends, or refracts, each colour in the white light differently. When the light comes out of the drop, it is no longer white light, but split up into its colours.
The sharpest rainbow is called a primary rainbow. The colours in a rainbow are (from inside to outside) violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow orange and red.
A weaker rainbow is formed
by rays that have been bounced around the inside of a raindrop twice. They emerge at a slightly different angle and so are seen beyond the primary rainbow. In this rainbow the colours are reversed. Even weaker rainbows can also often be seen.
You can only see a rainbow when you have your back to the Sun.
Rainbow
Ultraviolet zone
Violet
Red
Glass prism
 Prism – Prisms are triangular glass blocks that can either split light into its spectrum of colours (top right) or bend it without any colour change, as used in binoculars.
Infrared zone
 Rainbow – A rainbow is produced by reflection and refraction inside raindrops.
Broad spectrum of coloured light
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