Question

A beam of white light (400 – 700 nm) is shone at a small equilateral quartz prism. 1.5 m behind the prism is a large screen. What is observed on the screen, and where, if (A) the beam is incident on a vertex of the prism, and (B) if the beam is incident normal to one of the faces? Assume both the prism and the width of the beam are non-zero but negligible relative to the prism-screen distance. The index of refraction of quartz for 400 nm light is 1.47 and it is 1.45 for 700 nm light.

Answer 1