What is the simple explanation of a rainbow?

Answer 1

When light travels from one medium to another, it bends. In other words, it changes direction and moves at different speeds in different mediums. This property of light is called "refraction".

We also know that white light is made up of different colours. Different colors of light have different frequencies. Except in vacuum and air, they travel at different speeds in different mediums.

If you were to allow a beam of light to pass through a simple prism, it will bend when it enters the prism, when it leaves the prism it bends again. The different colours of the white light travel with different speeds inside the prism. The slanted surfaces of the prism makes the different colours emerge separately, thus in addition to bending light as a whole, a prism separates white light into its component colors. This splitting of light into its component colours is called dispersion, where prism is a dispersing element.

This is exactly what happens when the sun rays hit droplets of water. When the sunlight strikes a raindrop, the light is refracted (bent) because the light is moving from one medium(air) to another( water). Drops of rainwater can disperse light in the same way as a prism.. When the light comes out of the water droplet, the sun's rays (white light)have now been split into their component wavelengths (colors). In this way, each individual raindrop behaves just like a prism, dispersing white sunlight into its seven component colors and a rainbow is formed.

The rainbow we see is thus a result of many, many raindrops bending the sun's rays.

Answer 2

A most charming example of chromatic dispersion is a rainbow.

When white sunlight is intercepted by a drop of water in the atmosphere, some of the light refracts into the drop, reflects from the drop's inner surface, and then refracts out of the drop.

As with the prism, the first refraction separates the sunlight into its component colors, and the second refraction increases the separation. The result is the rainbow.

Answer 3

When light travels incident to the plane of any surface from a rarer to a denser medium it undergoes a phenomenon called dispersion of light into independent monochromatic lights with varying frequency in the order VIBGYOR-vilolet,indigo,blue,green,yellow,orange and red. After a session of rain the atmosphere is covered by tiny water molecules that act as a denser medium just like a prism to split the incoming light from the cleared clouds into the seven rainbow colors as a rainbow.

Answer 4

A rainbow is formed much like a light reflecting out of a prism, such as the Pink Floyd's album Dark Side of the Moon. White light is composed of all the colors in the color spectrum, including colors we cannot see.When a straight white light beam hits a rain droplet in the air it creates the same effect. Since each color ray is a different wavelength, it will reflect at a slightly different angle, creating the colors in a row from longest to shortest or vice versa. The bow shape is perceived from our occipital viewing range of the light being reflected. No matter what elevation you're looking from, even in a plane, you will see an arch. Sorry, but there is no pot of gold at the bottom of a rainbow... =( To see a rainbow, go outside on a partly cloudy, scattered showers day and face away from the sun.Later day might work the best.

Answer 5

When the sun is out and it is raining a rainbow occurs.

Answer 6

The Rainbow Formation is like going in Dasoleo the more "papuok" sa mg babae the more "magpakuot".So to Prove Rainbow Formation just go in Dasoleo.

Answer 7

rainbows are formed by a certain contrast and mist the rain will fall as the sun comes out and then the sun vaporizes the rain and it turns multicoloured