How Prisms are Used in Real Life Situations

In the 1660s, people believed that colour was a combination of light and dark. People also thought that the coloured light in prisms was due to glass corruption. However, in the 1670s, Sir Issac Newton showed the ability of a prism to split white light into its constituent colours. He also demonstrated how prisms could recombine the constituents back into white light. 

Newton’s studies formed the basis of our contemporary knowledge of light and colour. Today, the prism is a versatile tool that does much more than simply disperse light. It can also reverse, orient, invert, and rotate an image. This article will discuss the characteristics, uses, and everyday examples of prisms in detail. 

What is a Prism?

Prisms are optical components that disperse or change light’s direction. They are composed of various materials, notably glass, plastic, and fluorite. Prisms are typically transparent to the electromagnetic spectrum region in concern. 

A prism can serve multiple purposes in various instances. The prism’s shape and angles between its surfaces change depending on the use.

Everyday Examples of Prisms

A few of the most common everyday examples of prisms are as presented here:

• Rubik’s cube: It is a well-known illustration of a square prism since it has six congruent faces that are all perpendicular to each other
• Camping tents: They are available in a range of designs and sizes. The triangular prism is among the most prevalent tent shapes
• Tissue box: The most common shape for tissue boxes is a cube or cuboid. Both the cube and cuboid are made up of two comparable and parallel faces joined by four flat faces. As a result, they are a good illustration of square and rectangular prism-shaped items that we see in our daily lives

Properties of Prisms

The basic characteristics of prisms are mentioned below.

• All of the faces of a prism must be flat. Thus, a prism’s surface cannot be curved
• A prism’s cross-section cannot be round, and its base cannot be circular. Therefore, spheres, cylinders, and cones are not prisms
• A prism’s base and top face are identical and aligned parallelly
• A prism’s cross-section remains constant along its length

How are Prisms Used in Real Life?

Prisms are three-dimensional objects with two identically sized and shaped faces and parallelogram sides. Notebooks, ice cubes, and dice are a few everyday examples of prisms. So, how are prisms used in the world? Prisms are used for many purposes. Light-reflecting and light-refracting prisms are solely used in optical studies. 

However, prisms are used in various fields, such as architecture. They are commonly seen in telescopes, periscopes, and microscopes, but scientists also use them in research to explore how the human eye reacts to light.

In Optical Instruments

Because of their capacity to distort and manipulate light, prisms play an important role in designing a variety of optical equipment. Porro prisms are a single unit of two prisms. They were invented in 1850 and are named after their inventor Ignazio Porro. This instrument pushes light back the way it came from while reversing it vertically and horizontally. 

Telescopes, microscopes, cameras, and submarine periscopes are examples of optical instruments that utilise prisms. Telescopes manipulate light travelling enormous distances to reach the eye by combining several prisms into a single unit.

Unpolarised and randomly polarised light get separated into linearly polarised light by the Wollaston prism. At the intersection of the two triangular prisms, light is split into ordinary and extraordinary beams, bending away from each other. Rotational mounts, CD players, and polarisation microscopy all require prisms of this type. 

Astronauts also use prisms to calculate the distance between the moon and earth on a roundtrip basis. The LRRR or Lunar Laser Ranging RetroReflector array used in the experiment for the Lunar Laser Ranging during the Apollo 11, 15, and 14 missions is one example of retroreflector use. Astronauts erected this array on the moon, composed of a hundred corner cubes. Connor cubes are prisms which reflect light the way from where it came.

In Ophthalmology

Since the 19th century, ophthalmologists have used prisms to diagnose and treat esotropia, nystagmus, amblyopia, and exotropia. They use prism-refracted light to examine the various components of the eye. It helps them identify issues while detecting eye disorders or deficits. Prisms used to treat disease assist the patient’s eyesight by redirecting light into the eye. It is also used to make corrective lenses for people with certain eye illnesses or vision problems.

In Architecture

Prisms that manipulate light are common in architectural designs. They are commonly employed in planning and construction. Prisms are a shape frequently used in architecture. For example, triangular prisms are a frequent construction form in Sweden. The angles of the building’s roofs encourage snow to shed instead of accumulating. The very first skyscrapers were also massive rectangular prisms. However, modern architecture projects use rectangular, triangular, and even hexagonal prisms, like the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. 

Conclusion

Prisms are optical tools specially designed to distort and manipulate a light beam. However, these tools are capable of more than just dispersing light rays. They can inverse, rotate, reverse, or orient images. Some of the everyday examples of prisms include the Rubik’s cube, dice, and tissue boxes. Prisms find use in several fields like ophthalmology, optical instruments, and architecture. They are commonly seen in telescopes, binoculars, submarine periscopes, and microscopes.