In doing some of this week’s readings, I came across some information on the formation of rainbows. Since I was little, I have long been obsessed with the idea of a rainbow and all of its psychedelic colors. I thought I understood the basic concepts of a rainbow (that it was formed when white sunlight strikes water, and so on); but it turns out that there is so much more to the beautiful arcs in the sky than I thought!
In reading Our World of Light and Color, part of this week’s assigned lectures, I was fascinated by the introduction which describes how rainbows are formed.
It turns out that rainbows aren’t even arcs! They’re actually circles but only half of the circle is reflected in the sky! Therefore we’re only ever seeing half of a rainbow! (However, from an airplane you can sometimes see the full circle.)
Additionally, the separation of colors results from the refraction of sunlight at a 42 degree angle from within the water droplet. If two people are viewing the same rainbow from slightly different angles, they will actually being viewing two entirely different rainbows.
I thought all of this additional information about rainbows was very fascinating and can’t wait to learn more about how the human eye perceives color.
2 Responses to See the Rainbow (a reflection on the first chapter of Our World of Light and Color)