Many of the observations that you will make in this laboratory will use a mounted, plastic diffraction grating which has 5000 lines per centimeter. The separation of adjacent lines is then (1/5000) cm. With this separation, visible light (wavelengths of 400 to 700 nm) is diffracted by angles of 10˚ to 20˚ in first order. If you hold the grating close to your eye and look straight at a light, you will see the diffracted beam on either side of the source. Required:
a. Calculate the line separation.
b. What is the separation in nm between the lines of your grating?