Discover that "white" light is actually made up of many different colors. Investigate the colors of the rainbow, just the way Sir Isaac Newton did!

Is all white light the same? Try comparing sunlight to the light from a regular (incandescent) light bulb. Then try fluorescent light. Do you see any changes?

Our Light Crystal is ideally displayed on a table or desktop near a light fixture, or on a window ledge. Specially shaped to enhance light reflection and refraction, it is perfect for light enthusiasts of all ages.

• Light moves at a slightly slower speed inside the Light Crystal than it does in air.
• When a light beam enters the Light Crystal, it slows a bit. If it is coming into the prism at an angle, the side closest to the prism slows first, before the far side has reached the prism. The light changes direction, heading more directly into the prism. This is called "light refraction." (The opposite happens as light comes back out of the prism and speeds up, bending off toward a higher angle.)
• How much light slows in the Light Crystal depends on its wavelength, or color. Blue light slows more than red light, making it bend more. The dependence of the degree of slowing on light color is called "dispersion."
• The dispersion of the different colors of light as they move through the Light Crystal causes them to come out headed in different directions. This spreading out of the different colors makes a rainbow!

The Light Crystal can show you how light reflects inside of a prism to take an image from one direction to another, just the way it happens in cameras, binoculars, and telescopes.

• If the light comes through the Light Crystal heading out to a surface in air at a large enough angle, the increase in speed as it tries to go back out into air makes it change direction back into the Light Crystal. When this happens, we have "total internal reflection" of the light.

Size: 4.5" (11.4 cm)
Black display base included.

Gift wrap orders: input salutation in the comment section at the end of the ordering process.