Can a Magnifying Glass and Prism Create an Ignitable Rainbow?

  • Context: High School 
  • Thread starter Thread starter Graze
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Glass Prism
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
1 reply · 4K views
Graze
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Can combining a magnifying glass and a prism make a rainbow capable of ignition?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
The magnifying glass would recombine the colors, at least to some extent, so you would probably have a white spot or stripe instead of a rainbow one. Also, to get the rainbow effect you must typically allow only a small strip of light into the prism, which would greatly reduce the amount of light available, possibly too low to ignite anything.