When light is put through a prism, why do we see the colors?

Question: When light is put through a prism, why do we see the colors?
- Keywords:
  colour,
  light,
  prism
Asked by to Emma on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
- Emma Reid answered on 17 Jun 2014:
  
  Hi there!
  When light hits a prism it changes speed and this causes the light to be refracted so that it changes direction. Different wavelengths of light have different refractive indexes, which means that the light splits up and we see a rainbow of colours, as each colour has a different wavelength. I hope this answers your question 🙂
  Emma

Question: When light is put through a prism, why do we see the colors?