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? asked in Science & MathematicsPhysics · 7 years ago

Can prisms seperate colors in water?

My science teacher demonstrated a small experiment for us where she filled a jar of water and dropped a prism in it.

She had seven empty beakers and poured the water from the jar into each one. And the water in every beaker turned a different color of the rainbow.

I know prisms seperate color, but can they do that in water?? It just seems like maybe she had a chemical base at the bottom of each one.

But when she poured the colored water back into the jar, the water turned clear again. She did not provide an explanation as to why it did this, or what was going on. When I asked her about it after class, she didn't say much.

So what was this?!

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  • 7 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    That is an awesome magic trick, but it has nothing to do with the prism. The prism was just to distract you.

    My guess is that the beakers contained some form of colourants, and that she had some sort of bleaching agent she added to the jar afterwards while you were distracted in one way or another, which removed the colours and left the water clear.

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