A good science fair project using your spectroscope is testing the hypothesis that different gases produce different spectra of light. Aim your spectroscope at various light sources.

Did you know that white light is made up of many colors? To see these colors, we need to bend the light. This bending is called refraction. When you see a rainbow, it’s because sunlight is bending ...

Yesterday morning we made a spectroscope — a device that breaks light down into a rainbow of component colors — from a cardboard box and an old DVD. Different light sources give you different ...

This article was originally published with the title “Making Old Air Better than New, Chemical Analysis with the Spectroscope” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 129 No. 2 (August 1923), p ...