It is common for nucleic acid samples to be contaminated with other molecules (i.e. proteins, organic compounds, other). The secondary benefit of using spectrophotometric analysis for nucleic acid quantitation is the ability to determine sample purity using the 260 nm:280 nm calculation. The ratio of the absorbance at 260 and 280 nm (A) is used to assess the purity of nucleic acids. For pure DNA, A is widely considered ~1.8 but has been argued to translate - due to numeric errors in the original Warburg paper - into a mix of 60% protein and 40% DNA. The ratio for pure RNA A is ~2.0. These ratios are commonly used to assess the amount of protein contamination that is left from the nucleic acid isolation process since proteins absorb at 280 nm.
The ratio of absorbance at 260 nm vs 280 nm is commonly used to assess DNA contamination of protein solutions, since proteins (in particular, the aromatic amino acids) absorb light at 280 nm. The reverse, however, is not true — it takes a relatively large amount of protein contamination to significantly affect the 260:280 ratio in a nucleic acid solution.
260:280 ratio has high sensitivity for nucleic acid contamination in protein:
260:280 ratio lacks sensitivity for protein contamination in nucleic acids (table shown for RNA, 100% DNA is approximately 1.8):
This difference is due to the much higher mass attenuation coefficient nucleic acids have at 260 nm and 280 nm, compared to that of proteins. Because of this, even for relatively high concentrations of protein, the protein contributes relatively little to the 260 and 280 absorbance. While the protein contamination cannot be reliably assessed with a 260:280 ratio, this also means that it contributes little error to DNA quantity estimation.