Why there is no dispersion in white light refracted through a rectangular glass slab short answer?
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Dispersion of light DOES occur in glass slab. Consider a thin beam of white light which is being refracted by a rectangular glass slab. The colors do disperse at the first interface of glass and air. But, after being refracted through the second interface, all colors start moving parallel to each other.
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A light ray is refracted (bent) when it passes from one medium to another at an angle and its speed changes. At the interface, it is bent in one direction if the material it enters is denser (when light slows down) and in the OTHER direction if the material is less dense (when light speeds up). Because different wavelengths (colors) of light travel through a medium at different speeds, the amount of bending is different for different wavelengths. Violet is bent the most and red the least because violet light has a shorter wavelength, and short wavelengths travel more slowly through a medium than longer ones do. Because white light is made up of ALL visible wavelengths, its colors can be separated (dispersed) by this difference in behavior.
When light passes through glass, it encounters TWO interfaces--one entering and the other leaving. It slows down at the first interface and speeds back up at the second. If the two interface surfaces are parallel to each other, as in a 'slab' of glass, all of the bending (and dispersion) that takes place at the first interfaces is exactly reversed at the second, 'undoing' the effect of the first interface; so although the emerging ray of light is displaced slightly from the entering ray, it travels in the same direction as the incoming ray and all wavelengths that separated at the first interface are re-combined.
If the second interface is NOT parallel to the first, as in a prism, the effects of the first interface are NOT reversed and the colors separated at that interface continue along different paths upon leaving the glass.
Hope this will help you.. ✌
or
A light ray is refracted (bent) when it passes from one medium to another at an angle and its speed changes. At the interface, it is bent in one direction if the material it enters is denser (when light slows down) and in the OTHER direction if the material is less dense (when light speeds up). Because different wavelengths (colors) of light travel through a medium at different speeds, the amount of bending is different for different wavelengths. Violet is bent the most and red the least because violet light has a shorter wavelength, and short wavelengths travel more slowly through a medium than longer ones do. Because white light is made up of ALL visible wavelengths, its colors can be separated (dispersed) by this difference in behavior.
When light passes through glass, it encounters TWO interfaces--one entering and the other leaving. It slows down at the first interface and speeds back up at the second. If the two interface surfaces are parallel to each other, as in a 'slab' of glass, all of the bending (and dispersion) that takes place at the first interfaces is exactly reversed at the second, 'undoing' the effect of the first interface; so although the emerging ray of light is displaced slightly from the entering ray, it travels in the same direction as the incoming ray and all wavelengths that separated at the first interface are re-combined.
If the second interface is NOT parallel to the first, as in a prism, the effects of the first interface are NOT reversed and the colors separated at that interface continue along different paths upon leaving the glass.
Hope this will help you.. ✌
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2
After refraction at two parallel faces of a glass slab, a ray of light emerges in a direction parallel to the direction of incidence of white light on the slab. As rays of all colours emerge in the same direction (of incidence of white light), hence there is no dispersion, but only lateral displacement
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