Explain dispersion of white light.

Explanation

It has been known for a long time that when a narrow beam of sunlight, usually called white light is incident on a glass prism the emergent light is seen to be consisting of several colours.

There is actually a continuous variation of colour, but broadly, the different component colours that appear in sequence are : violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red (given by the acronym VIBGYOR).
The red light bends the least while the violet light bends the most.
The phenomenon of splitting of light into its component colours is known as dispersion.
The pattern of colour components of light is called the spectrum of light.