James Clerk Maxwell

The Discovery of Electromagnetic Radiation (James Clerk Maxwell)

In 1865 James Clerk Maxwell proposed that light is a wave with both electric and magnetic components. It is therefore a form of electromagnetic radiation. Because it is a wave, light is bent when it enters a glass prism. When white light is focused on a prism, the light rays of different wavelengths are bent by differing amounts and the light is transformed into a spectrum of colors. Starting from the side of the spectrum where the light is bent by the smallest angle, the colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.