Newton's Light Spectrum Experiment | Earth Science

What set Newton apart from other scientists was that he famously devised and performed an experiment to test his hypothesis.

In Search Of Science Episode 1
Brian Cox is going in search of the best of British science. Introducing his science heroes, Brian visits the places where they made their discoveries, recreating their experiments and examining their legacy to their scientific descendants.

Welcome to BBC Earth Science! Here we answer all your curious questions about science in the world around you. If there’s a question you have that we haven’t yet answered let us know in the comments!

[cronaman]

We live with this stuff today but we take for granted how creative you really have to be to discover this. I never knew this until now, im blown away. Im sad i learned this at age 24

[jmbkr]

Just imagine of what Newton could create with advanced technology...

[ucduongbui]

Learning this at high school, and want to make physics more interesting !!!

[thuytienlives]

I'm no genius, so there's no way I could have figured this out in a million years. Thanks so much for teaching us about Mr Newton and his discovery about prisms and light, it was really eye opening!

[DownhillAllTheWay]

Two questions :
a) How many individual colours can be produced simply by varying the wavelength of light? White light refracts into 6 or 7 colours. Does that indicate that there are only 6 or 7 wavelengths of light in white light?
b) I believe Newton also experimented by putting thermometers in the different colours, and found that they have different temperatures - but the highest temperatures were in the invisible part beyond red. We now call this infra-red, which is radiated heat - however, this shows that a glass prism refracts more than just the visible spectrum of light. What bandwidth of electromagnetic radiation can be refracted by a glass prism?

[hopolo]

That was really cool to go inside the mind of Newton.

[muhuashen]

Thanks. I finally understand our en sci project 😭
real great!

[dancetweety]

The light is made up out of different frequencies and together make up the white light. The colors how ever are made up by are brain the cones in are eyes are sensitive to certain frequencies and signal to the brain. The brain puts a color to a frequency. So it may well be that a other species sees the same frequency as a different color.

[MrNightSky]

Amazing video, helped me a lot with a project

[dexter]

This experiment looks like it confirms that different coloured lights have different speeds.

[sravankumarp]

The another fact is that the frequency of different wavelengths of light can be experienced by colorbliends !

[blgwen]

i want to know the temperature of the blue, yellow, and red regions every after 2 mins for 10 mins.

[lovingfood]

That is some super cool scientific stuff

[mynameismyname]

Can the electricity in the spine connected to nerves be reflected like like into a avatar with nerves?

[koysensei]

dispersion = process of diving white light into various colors

[trendypie]

i wonder how genius sir newton could be to observe light in such a magnificent ways . i am standing from my seat in respect of Sir Isaac newton

[JonathanWirth-cp]

Have a goodnight productions ideas. 😊

[joewhitehouse]

If Keanu Reaves and Alex Turner had a child

[arunchettoor]

Mix blue green and red colours to get white.

[jeremykemp]

Does anyone know how the second prism is made? Thanks. Jez