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Isaac Newton |
For a long time, it has been known that rainbows occur when sunlight shines simultaneously with rain. The raindrops alter the white light of the sun into various colors.
Isaac Newton demonstrated this in 1665 by placing a glass prism under a ray of sunlight: he obtained the colors of the rainbow through diffraction, also proving that white light is actually a result of the mixture of the colors of the rainbow. The small droplets of rain act like tiny prisms, creating a rainbow.
To eliminate any doubt, Isaac Newton used another prism placed under the spectrum created by the first prism, and he also obtained a new beam of white light—the second prism had gathered the colors together to produce white light.
In 1668, Newton invented the reflecting telescope. This telescope uses a concave mirror instead of one of the two lenses found in a refracting telescope. Modern telescopes are always constructed based on the same principle.
Learn about the scientist Isaac Newton, “the founder of classical physics”
