Solution

When white light passes through a prism, it undergoes a process known as dispersion, where it is split into its constituent spectrum of colors. This happens because light of different colors has different wavelengths, and each wavelength bends at a slightly different angle when it passes through the prism due to variations in the speed at which they travel through the glass. Among all the colors, violet has the shortest wavelength and hence it bends the most, resulting in its position at one end of the visible spectrum. Conversely, red light, which has the longest wavelength, bends the least. This varying degree of bending creates the range of colors seen in a dispersion spectrum.