Question

What do you mean by dispersion of light

Answer 1

Hint: The term dispersion itself means spattering of splitting out. White light is an EM wave which is made up of various colored rays with different wavelengths. Now when this light wave is passed into any transparent material time of interaction of individual constituent rays with atoms of that material determines the structure of the light coming out the prism.

Complete answer:
When white light is passed through any transparent material let us assume prism the light gets separated into its individual component colors and gets out of that prism. This process of separation of light into its individual components is called dispersion of light
normally those colors are called as VIBGYOR where
VIOLET(V)
INDIGO(I)
BLUE(B)
GREEN(G)
YELLOW(Y)
ORANGE(O)
RED(R)
Each color has its own wavelength where violet has the shortest wavelength while red has the longest wavelength.
Refractive index of each individual light varies with its wavelength and frequency. For higher frequency refractive index will be more and that color deviates more and lower frequency rays have less refractive index and deviates less.

Since violet has less wavelength and higher frequency it deviates more while red has higher wavelength and less frequency hence deviates less.

Additional information:
Diamond has a high refractive index around 2.4 and hence when light is going out of diamond it deviates more and undergoes total internal reflection in itself and shines a lot due to this.

Note:
It is to be remembered that prism slows down violet light a lot and hence it will be travelling a longer path than red light inside prism. In the process of formation of rainbow raindrops act as prisms and cause dispersion of the sunlight. Scattering of light in fog is also due to dispersion of light by fog.