Accession No

1906

Brief Description

glass prism, tentatively attributed to W. Ladd and Company, English, 1877 (c)

Origin

England; London [based on attributed maker]

Maker

W. Ladd and Company [tentative attribution]

Class

optical

Earliest Date

1877

Latest Date

1877

Inscription Date

Material

glass

Dimensions

length 70mm; breadth 44mm; depth 32mm

Special Collection

Cavendish Laboratory

Provenance

Transferred from the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge in 11/1974.

Inscription

Description Notes

Composite glass 60˚ prism, composed of seven transverse elements.

Condition fair (chipping to edges); complete.

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:40104