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Q. When light passes through a dispersive medium, it breaks up into various colours. Which of the following statements is correct?

J & K CETJ & K CET 2000

Solution:

When white light passes through a dispersive medium say prism, it splits into its constituent colours. This is known as dispersion. The reason for dispersion is that in a material medium the light rays of different colours travel with different speeds. Hence, refractive index n is different for different colours.
n= speed of light in vacuum  speed of light in medium 
In glass speed of violet light is minimum while that of red light is maximum.