PRISM • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Prism

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/prˈɪzəm/ Listen

noun

Prism n.

1.

(Geom.) A solid whose bases or ends are any similar, equal, and parallel plane figures, and whose sides are parallelograms. Note: Prisms of different forms are often named from the figure of their bases; as, a triangular prism, a quadrangular prism, a rhombic prism, etc.

2.

(Opt.) A transparent body, with usually three rectangular plane faces or sides, and two equal and parallel triangular ends or bases; used in experiments on refraction, dispersion, etc.

3.

(Crystallog.) A form the planes of which are parallel to the vertical axis. See Form, n., 13.

Achromatic prism (Opt.), a prism composed usually of two prisms of different transparent substances which have unequal dispersive powers, as two different kinds of glass, especially flint glass and crown glass, the difference of dispersive power being compensated by giving them different refracting angles, so that, when placed together so as to have opposite relative positions, a ray of light passed through them is refracted or bent into a new position, but is free from color.

Nicol's prism, Nicol prism. (Opt.) An instrument for experiments in polarization, consisting of a rhomb of Iceland spar, which has been bisected obliquely at a certain angle, and the two parts again joined with transparent cement, so that the ordinary image produced by double refraction is thrown out of the field by total reflection from the internal cemented surface, and the extraordinary, or polarized, image alone is transmitted.

See images of 'Prism'

Etymology of 'Prism'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Prism" Quotes from Famous Books

... as we have yielded to the infernal temptation, the lying prism vanishes, the halo disappears, and there only remains vice in all its hideousness and repulsive nudity. It is then that we hear a threatening voice mutter secretly in the ...

— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... at least a mathematical relationship, or perhaps I ought rather to have said a metaphysical relationship between them. Sir Isaac Newton has observed, that the breadths of the seven primary colours in the Sun's image refracted by a prism are proportional to the seven musical notes of the gamut, or to the intervals of the eight sounds contained in an octave, that is, proportional to ...

— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... look at woman through the prism of desire, and she looks at us in the same way; her beauty appears to us the more perfect the more it arouses our sexual desires—that is, the more voluptuous enjoyment the possession ...

— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... never care for it very long. The antelope does not have a chance against gas and steel and a long-range rifle. On horseback the conditions are reversed. An antelope can run twice as fast as the best horse living. It can see as far as a man with prism binoculars. All the odds are in the animal's favor except two—its fatal desire to run in a circle about the pursuer, and the use of a high-power rifle. But even then an antelope three hundred yards away, going at a speed of fifty miles an hour, ...

— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... with a glass prism for reading by reflection, that the eye can simultaneously observe an object and ...

— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org