Prism (optics) in the context of "Atomic spectral line"

A lens is a transmissive optical device that focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (elements), usually arranged along a common axis. Lenses are made from materials such as glass or plastic and are ground, polished, or molded to the required shape. A lens can focus light to form an image, unlike a prism, which refracts light without focusing. Devices that similarly focus or disperse waves and radiation other than visible light are also called "lenses", such as microwave lenses, electron lenses, acoustic lenses, or explosive lenses.

Lenses are used in various imaging devices such as telescopes, binoculars, and cameras. They are also used as visual aids in glasses to correct defects of vision such as myopia and hypermetropia.

Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin. It is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori, which are reared in captivity (sericulture). The shimmery appearance of silk is due to the triangular prism-like structure of the silk fiber, which causes silk cloth to refract incoming light at different angles, thus producing different colors.

Harvested silk is produced by numerous insects; generally, only the silk of various moth caterpillars has been used for textile manufacturing. Research into other types of silk, which differ at the molecular level, has been conducted. Silk is produced primarily by the larvae of insects undergoing complete metamorphosis, but some insects, such as webspinners and raspy crickets, produce silk throughout their lives. Silk production also occurs in hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants), silverfish, caddisflies, mayflies, thrips, leafhoppers, beetles, lacewings, fleas, flies, and midges. Other types of arthropods also produce silk, most notably various arachnids, such as spiders.

In optics, a dispersive prism is an optical prism that is used to disperse light, that is, to separate light into its spectral components (the colors of the rainbow). Different wavelengths (colors) of light will be deflected by the prism at different angles. This is a result of the prism material's index of refraction varying with wavelength (dispersion). Generally, longer wavelengths (red) undergo a smaller deviation than shorter wavelengths (blue). The dispersion of white light into colors by a prism led Sir Isaac Newton to conclude that white light consisted of a mixture of different colors.

Triangular prisms are the most common type of dispersive prism. Other types of dispersive prism exist that have more than two optical interfaces; some of them combine refraction with total internal reflection.

In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomenon, but other waves such as sound waves and water waves also experience refraction. How much a wave is refracted is determined by the change in wave speed and the initial direction of wave propagation relative to the direction of change in speed.

Optical prisms and lenses use refraction to redirect light, as does the human eye. The refractive index of materials varies with the wavelength of light, and thus the angle of the refraction also varies correspondingly. This is called dispersion and allows prisms and raindrops in rainbows to divide white light into its constituent spectral colors.

The Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park is the largest hot spring in the United States, and the third largest in the world, after Frying Pan Lake in New Zealand and Boiling Lake in Dominica. It is located in the Midway Geyser Basin.

Grand Prismatic Spring was noted by geologists working in the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871, and named by them for its striking coloration. Its colors match most of those seen in the rainbow dispersion of white light by an optical prism: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue.

Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets electromagnetic spectra as it interacts with matter. In narrower contexts, spectroscopy is the precise study of color as generalized from radiated visible light to all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Spectroscopy, primarily in the electromagnetic spectrum, is a fundamental exploratory tool in the fields of astronomy, chemistry, materials science, and physics, allowing the composition, physical and electronic structure of matter to be investigated at the atomic, molecular and macro scale, and over astronomical distances.

In the physical sciences, spectrum describes any continuous range of either frequency or wavelength values. The term initially referred to the range of observed colors as white light is dispersed through a prism — introduced to optics by Isaac Newton in the 17th century.

The concept was later expanded to other waves, such as sound waves and sea waves that also present a variety of frequencies and wavelengths (e.g., noise spectrum, sea wave spectrum). Starting from Fourier analysis, the concept of spectrum expanded to signal theory, where the signal can be graphed as a function of frequency and information can be placed in selected ranges of frequency. Presently, any quantity directly dependent on, and measurable along the range of, a continuous independent variable can be graphed along its range or spectrum. Examples are the range of electron energy in electron spectroscopy or the range of mass-to-charge ratio in mass spectrometry.