SPECTRUM

Dictionary of Science, Literature and Art · 1854 · p. 30

(Lnt. Fpectrum, image.) In Optics, the name given to an elongated image of the sun or other luminous body, formed on a wall or screen by a beam of undecomposed light received through a small hole, and refracted by a prism. For the different colours and fixed lines of the solar spectrum, see Chromatics; and for the refrangibility of the different rays. Refraction. [s. 1159]