See the Rainbow (a reflection on the first chapter of Our World of Light and Color)

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.

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2 Responses to See the Rainbow (a reflection on the first chapter of Our World of Light and Color)

  1. alexandra-spiliakos says:

    This is very interesting!! I wonder if, in referencing the article released by the Astronomy Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, there are additional wavelengths to the rainbow that our eyes simply cant see. Maybe this would even make the ‘circle’ rainbow more of a disk.

  2. amehta says:

    I too found this reading extremely interesting! I was shocked to learn that rainbows are actually full circles and not semi-circles like we perceive them to be. I think it’s amazing how the human eye can perceive the various complexities existing in nature!

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