prism

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(prĭz'əm) pronunciation
n.
  1. A solid figure whose bases or ends have the same size and shape and are parallel to one another, and each of whose sides is a parallelogram.
  2. A transparent body of this form, often of glass and usually with triangular ends, used for separating white light passed through it into a spectrum or for reflecting beams of light.
  3. A cut-glass object, such as a pendant of a chandelier.
  4. A crystal form consisting of three or more similar faces parallel to a single axis.
  5. A medium that misrepresents whatever is seen through it.

[Late Latin prīsma, from Greek prīsma, thing sawed off, prism, from prīzein, to saw, variant of prīein.]


The journal of the Poetry Society of Australia, appeared in July 1954, edited by Peter Daventry, and was thereafter published, usually monthly, until it was succeeded in 1961 by Poetry Magazine. The Poetry Society of Australia: First Anthology (1956), edited by Wesley Milgate and Imogen Whyse in 1957, was a selection of verse from the pages of Prism.

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Piece of glass or other transparent material cut with precise angles and plane faces. Prisms are useful for analyzing and refracting light ( refraction). A triangular prism can separate white light into its constituent colours by refracting each different wavelength of light by a different amount. The longer wavelengths (those at the red end of the spectrum) are bent the least, the shorter ones (those at the violet end) the most. The result is the spectrum of visible light, or the rainbow. Prisms are used in certain kinds of spectroscopy and in various optical systems.

For more information on prism, visit Britannica.com.

A polyhedron of which two faces are congruent polygons in parallel planes, and the other faces are parallelograms (see illustration). The bases B are the congruent polygons; the lateral faces are the parallelograms; the lateral edges are the edges not lying in the bases; and the perpendicular distance between the bases is the altitude h. Sections parallel to the bases are congruent to the bases. A prism is a right prism if its lateral edges are perpendicular to the bases; an oblique prism otherwise. A prism is called a triangular prism if its bases are triangles; a pentagonal prism if its bases are pentagons; and a parallelepiped if its bases are parallelograms. The volume of any prism is equal to the area of its base times its altitude (V = Bh). See also Polyhedron.

Prism configurations. (<i>a</i>) Right. (<i>b</i>) Oblique.
Prism configurations. (a) Right. (b) Oblique.


(1) (PhotoRefractive Information Storage Materials Consortium) A collaboration of IBM, Stanford University, GTE, Hughes Research Labs, Optitek, SRI International and Rockwell Science Center that is funded by the U.S. government's Advanced Research Projects Agency for the purpose of researching holographic storage.

(2) (PRogrammable Integrated Scripts for Mirror) The programming language for the Mirror communications programs.

(3) See PR/SM.

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prism, in optics, a piece of translucent glass or crystal used to form a spectrum of light separated according to colors. Its cross section is usually triangular. The light becomes separated because different wavelengths or frequencies are refracted (bent) by different amounts as they enter the prism obliquely and again as they leave it (see refraction). The shorter wavelengths, toward the blue or violet end of the spectrum, are refracted by the greatest amount; the longer wavelengths, toward the red end, are refracted the least. The Nicol prism is a special type of prism made of calcite; it is used for polarization of light.


(priz-uhm)

A solid figure in geometry with bases or ends of the same size and shape and sides that have parallel edges. Also, an object that has this shape.

  • A prism of glass (or a similar transparent material) can be used to bend different wavelengths of light by different amounts through refraction. This bending separates a beam of white light into a spectrum of colored light.
    1. any polyhedron of which two faces are polygons in parallel planes and the other faces are parallelograms.
    2. a crystal form of which three or more faces are parallel to one axis.
    3. a solid, bounded in part by two nonparallel plane faces and made of material transparent in the relevant region of the spectrum, that is used in optics to invert an image or to disperse or deviate a beam of light.

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    categories related to 'prism'

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    Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier
    For a list of words related to prism, see:

      See crossword solutions for the clue Prism.

    Prism may refer to:

    Science and mathematics

    Media and entertainment

    Books, comics and magazines

    Music

    Multi Channel Publishing

    Other

    Computing and software

    • PRISM (chipset), a wireless networking chipset
    • Apollo PRISM, a microprocessor made by Apollo Computer
    • DEC PRISM, a microprocessor made by Digital Equipment Corporation
    • Delphi Prism, a software development environment for .NET and Mono
    • Mozilla Prism, a software product for desktop integration of web applications
    • SGI Prism, a computer
    • IBM's PR/SM, a mainframe hypervisor
    • PRISM model checker, a probabilistic model checker
    • GraphPad Prism, software for scientific graphing, biostatistics and curve fitting (nonlinear regression), available for Windows and Mac

    Education

    Other meanings


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    Dansk (Danish)
    n. - prisme

    Nederlands (Dutch)
    prisma

    Français (French)
    n. - prisme

    Deutsch (German)
    n. - Prisma

    Ελληνική (Greek)
    n. - (οπτ.) πρίσμα

    Italiano (Italian)
    prisma

    Português (Portuguese)
    n. - prisma (m)

    Русский (Russian)
    призма

    Español (Spanish)
    n. - prisma

    Svenska (Swedish)
    n. - prisma

    中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
    棱镜, 棱柱

    中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
    n. - 棱鏡, 棱柱

    한국어 (Korean)
    n. - 프리즘, 분광기

    日本語 (Japanese)
    n. - プリズム, 角柱

    العربيه (Arabic)
    ‏(الاسم) موشور, منشور‏

    עברית (Hebrew)
    n. - ‮מנסרה‬


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    quadrangular prism (mathematics)
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