A clear glass or crystal shape with flat sides that bends light and splits it into rainbow colors, or a way of looking at something.
From Greek 'prisma' (something sawed), from 'priein' (to saw). Named for its geometric shape as if something was cut with a saw. Became a metaphor for any lens through which we view reality.
Newton used a prism to prove that white light contains all rainbow colors—one of science's coolest demonstrations! But today we use 'prism' metaphorically all the time: 'through the prism of history' means looking at something from a particular perspective, showing how a physics tool became a way to talk about perspective itself.
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