Accession No
1901
Brief Description
3-element wedge prism, for showing achromatism, used at the Cavendish Laboratory, 1910 (c)
Origin
Maker
Class
optical
Earliest Date
1910
Latest Date
1910
Inscription Date
Material
glass; metal (brass); hide (leather); cloth
Dimensions
case length 54mm; breadth 42mm; height 23mm
Special Collection
Cavendish collection
Provenance
Transferred from the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge in 1974. It is recorded in the Cavendish Laboratory's 1894 alphabetical catalogue of apparatus on p.153.
Inscription
Description Notes
3-element multiple wedge prism (two prisms broken, with pieces missing; 7-2-2000), each prism mounted in brass, mounts pivoting around connecting screws. Red morocco-covered, lined box.
Condition: poor (two prisms broken) (box: fair).
References
Events
Description
Prism
A prism consists of a translucent piece of glass or crystal, usually triangular in cross section, which is used to separate light into a spectrum of its separate colours.
The instrument works because different wavelengths of light are refracted (bent) by different amounts as they enter and leave the prism; the shorter wavelengths (towards the blue end of the spectrum) are refracted by the greatest amount, and the longer wavelengths (towards the red end) are refracted the least. This spreads out normal white light, which is a mixture of all the different colours, into its constituent parts and produces the rainbow effect of a spectrum.
18/10/2002
Created by: Saffron Clackson on 18/10/2002
FM:43219
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