The appearance of a rainbow. Why does a rainbow appear? Two, three - who is more?
Who hasn't seen a rainbow? This beautiful celestial phenomenon is observed during rain and always attracts our attention. It is often thought that a bright, multicolored rainbow appears only before the rain stops. This is not true. It is not uncommon for a rainbow to appear before the rain begins. You can see a rainbow regardless of the rain. Look, for example, at the splashes of water near a fountain, illuminated by the sun, and you will notice in them a small rainbow, similar to the heavenly one. To see such a rainbow, you need to stand with your back to the sun.
In earlier times, when people still knew very little about the world around them, the rainbow was considered a “heavenly sign.” So, the ancient Greeks thought, for example, that a rainbow was the smile of the goddess Iris.
Attempts to scientifically explain the phenomenon of the rainbow were brutally persecuted by clergy. At the beginning of the 17th century, the scientist Dominis, who tried to explain the rainbow by natural causes, was excommunicated and sentenced to death. He died in prison without waiting for execution, but his corpse was still executed and burned!
The correct scientific explanation for the rainbow was given after the nature of white light was unraveled.
About three hundred years ago, Czech scientist Mark Marcia discovered that white sunlight is complex light. Marzi prepared various cut glasses and observed how sunlight passed through them. One day Marzi took a wedge-shaped piece of glass - a glass prism - for an experiment and placed it in the path of a thin ray of sunlight in a dark room. The result was unexpected: on the stack of the room, where the sun's ray should have fallen, passing through the glass triangular reception, a multicolored rainbow stripe appeared. It was like a celestial rainbow - the different colors in the strip on the wall were located in the same order as in the celestial rainbow, turning into each other: after red came orange, then yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
Marzi realized that white light is a complex light; under certain conditions, it decomposes into many colored rays, forming rainbow stripes.
Later, the English scientist Newton explained why a glass prism decomposes white light. It turns out that the sun's rays, passing through a prism, deviate from their original direction; they are said to be refracted. In this case, various colored rays that make up white light are refracted in a prism in different ways - some more, others less. Red rays are refracted the least, violet rays the most. Due to different refraction, colored rays become visible when a white ray of sunlight passes through a prism.
The prism seems to separate the colored rays from each other. In other glasses, for example in ordinary window glass, the zeta rays are refracted in the same way, and therefore we see the same white light.
A multicolored band of decomposed white light is called a spectrum.
The fact that white light consists of multi-colored rays is proven by such an experiment. The cardboard circle is divided into seven parts, as shown in the picture, and the parts are painted in the main spectral colors. If such a circle is rotated quickly, the multi-colored stripes merge into one whitish-gray spot. This happens for the reason that visual impressions from differently colored parts of the circle, falling on the retina of the eye, are superimposed on one another during the rapid rotation of the circle, and thus seem to be mixed with each other. We see such a circle as grayish rather than pure white because it is very difficult to paint individual parts of the circle so that they exactly match the spectral colors of the natural rainbow.
After the discovery of spectral colors, it became clear that in the celestial rainbow we also observe solar rays, decomposed into a spectrum.
But how does this happen in nature? What replaces the glass prism here?
It turns out that a rainbow occurs when the rays of the Sun are refracted and reflected in raindrops. Here's how it works in its simplest form. Rays of sunlight fall on a drop of water. Entering a drop, they change their direction, are refracted and at the same time decompose into colored rays. The colored rays, having passed through the drop, are reflected from its inner opposite part (at place 2) and again pass through the drop of water. Coming out of the drop at location 5, the colored rays are refracted again and enter the eye of the observer. In this case, as in a glass prism, the violet rays of the visible spectrum deviate most from their original direction, and the red ones deviate least of all. Such refraction of sunlight rays occurs simultaneously in many drops.
To see a rainbow, the observer must stand between the Sun and raindrops, in which the sun's rays are refracted, and with his back to the Sun. Since colored rays come out of a drop at different angles, it is clear that from each drop only one colored ray can reach the observer’s eye. The observer will not see the remaining rays coming from the same drop; they will pass by his eye - higher or lower.
From the topmost drops, the refracted rays from which the observer will still see, only red rays will fall into the observer’s eyes - after all, they deviate the least during refraction. From the drops lying below, orange rays will fall into the eye. Drops lying even lower will send yellow rays into the observer's eyes, and so on - up to and including violet ones. The rays reflected by neighboring drops merge and thus the observer sees a series of colored stripes, from the top red to the purple bottom.
But why do we see a rainbow in the form of an arc? And this is explained quite simply. Mentally connect the Sun with all the points lying, say, on the red stripe of the rainbow, you will get a cone-shaped surface, the axis of which passes through the observer’s eye (Fig. 6). Each drop on this surface is in the same relation to both the Sun and the observer. Therefore, from all these drops only red rays enter the observer’s eye. Merging, they give a red arcuate line. The same line, but orange, is formed by raindrops located below, and so on.
This creates a rainbow, which is visible as long as raindrops fall often enough and evenly.
The brightness of a rainbow depends on the number of water droplets in the air and their size. It has been established that the larger the drops, the brighter the rainbow. This is why rainbows are especially bright during short summer rains, when frequent large drops fall on the ground. It was also noticed that depending on the size of the droplets, the appearance of the rainbow also changes - the brightness and width of its individual stripes change. Thus, droplets with a diameter of 0.5 to 1 millimeter produce a rainbow with bright purple and green stripes and a very faint blue stripe. When the droplets are much smaller in size, the red stripe is less noticeable in the rainbow, and the yellow stripe stands out more. For example, droplets with a diameter of 0.1 fraction of a millimeter or slightly smaller produce a bright, beautiful rainbow, somewhat wider than usual, in which there is no pure red color at all. If a white stripe is clearly visible in a rainbow, this means that the size of the raindrops does not exceed 0.03 fractions of a millimeter.
In general, the smaller the size of water droplets that give rise to the phenomenon of a rainbow, the more whitish the shades of rainbow colors, and also the wider the rainbow stripe. Thus, the size of raindrops can be determined by the appearance of rainbow stripes in the sky.
The smallest droplets of water that form fog and clouds no longer produce a rainbow.
When the Sun is on the horizon, we see a rainbow in the form of a full semicircle. As the Sun rises, the rainbow gradually decreases in size, descending towards the horizon. When the Sun rises above the horizon above 42 degrees, the rainbow goes beyond the horizon (a degree is a unit of measurement for circular arcs; an arc of one degree is 73 parts of a circle; the disk of the Moon, for example, is equal to '/g degree). That is why in the summer at noon the rainbow is not visible. In the afternoon, at sunset, you can see the rainbow again.
Thus, from the ground it is impossible to see a rainbow of more than half its circumference. But if you rise above the ground, you can see almost a full circle of the rainbow.
Most often we see one rainbow. However, it is not uncommon for two rainbow stripes to appear in the sky at the same time, one above the other. At the same time, in another rainbow the colors of the stripes are arranged in the reverse order - the upper part of the arc is purple, and the lower part is red.
The reason for this phenomenon has also been established. A double rainbow is explained by the fact that the sun's rays are reflected twice in drops located above the drops that produce a regular rainbow. Also, the double reflection of light in a drop of water is shown in Figure 8. Comparing the simple reflection of light in a drop (see Figure 5) with its double reflection, it is not difficult to establish that if with simple reflection a red ray hits the eye, then with double reflection the observer will see violet ray.
The formation diagram of a double rainbow is shown in the figure.
Since more light is lost in the drop during double reflection, the brightness of the second rainbow is always less and it looks paler.
They observe, however, quite rarely, and an even greater number of rainbow celestial arcs - three, four and even five at the same time!
This interesting phenomenon was observed, for example, by Leningrad residents on September 24, 1948, when in the afternoon four rainbows appeared among the clouds over the Neva.
This phenomenon occurs due to the fact that rainbows can arise not only from direct sunlight; It often appears in the reflected rays of the Sun. This can be seen on the shores of sea bays, large rivers and lakes. Multiple rainbows observed in the sky at the same time are often caused by this reason. Three or four such rainbows - ordinary and reflected - encircling the sky sometimes create a very beautiful picture.
Since the rays of the Sun reflected from the water surface go from bottom to top, the rainbow formed in these rays can sometimes look completely unusual: “upside down”
And finally, let's talk about the lunar rainbow. People usually think that rainbows only happen during the day. In fact, rainbows also happen at night, although they are always weaker, and they are observed very rarely. You can see such a rainbow after a night rain, when the Moon appears from behind the clouds. A rainbow appears in the sky in the direction opposite to the Moon
How often do we see a rainbow after rain? This colorful spectacle leaves no one indifferent! But when I saw a rainbow in the spray of the fountain, and then on the wall diagonally from the mirror, I wondered what was the reason for its appearance, if not rain or water? Having turned to my teacher for help, I learned that the cause of the rainbow is the phenomenon of dispersion, I found out who studied it for the first time, and I understood what it is.
A rainbow is one of the most beautiful natural phenomena that rarely leaves anyone indifferent. People once considered rainbows to be a sign from God. And this is not surprising, because she appears literally out of nowhere, and also mysteriously disappears.
What do we know about the rainbow?
The colors of the rainbow are always arranged in the same order from top to bottom: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet (remember from childhood the reminder of the order of colors in the rainbow - Every Hunter Wants to Know Where the Pheasant Sits or How Jean the Beller Once Broke the Blue Flashlight?).
The brightest stripe is red. Each subsequent color is paler than the previous one. Violet is generally difficult to distinguish against the sky.
What are the components of a rainbow? These are water droplets in the air, sun rays and an observer who sees a rainbow. In this case, a whole ritual must be observed: not only does the sun illuminate the rain, it must be low above the horizon, and the observer must stand between the rain and the sun - with his back to the sun, facing the rain. At this moment he sees a rainbow. How does this happen?
A sunbeam illuminates a raindrop. Penetrating inside the drop, the beam is slightly refracted. As you know, rays of different colors are refracted differently, that is, inside a drop, a white ray breaks up into its component colors. This is a dispersion phenomenon. Having passed through the drop, the light is reflected from its wall, like from a mirror. Reflected colored rays go in the opposite direction, refracting even more. The entire rainbow spectrum leaves the drop from the same side from which the sun's ray entered it.
Light from the sun penetrated the drop from the observer's side. Now this ray, decomposed into a color spectrum, returns to it. A person sees a huge colored rainbow spread across the entire sky - light refracted and reflected by billions of raindrops.
Double Rainbow
It's rare to see two rainbows in the sky at the same time. As a rule, the second rainbow is less visible, sometimes barely noticeable. The colors in such a rainbow are inverted, that is, purple comes first. Its appearance is explained by the repeated reflection of light rays inside the drop.
We can also see the phenomenon of a rainbow when light is refracted by droplets of fog or evaporation from the surface of the sea, and in the city - near a fountain.
Experience
Rainbows can also be observed using a drop of water.
Place a drop of water on a stick or blade of grass. Stand with your back to the Sun or other bright source of light. When the rays of light form an angle of about 42 degrees with the direction of the eye - the drop, the transparent drop suddenly flashes with an extremely pure color in tone!
Which one?
Anyone!
If you carefully move the drop along a circular arc, you can see all the colors of the rainbow!
Dispersion phenomenon- decomposition of white light into a spectrum (according to the colors of the rainbow) - was discovered and studied by I. Newton. This phenomenon indicates the complex composition of white light. I went to the Science Museum in London for a performance dedicated to Sir Isaac Newton. Plunging into the atmosphere of the 17th century, “visiting” a scientist’s laboratory recreated (even if on stage), I felt like a natural scientist.
Take a look at the Science Museum and learn more about the discoveries made by Newton by clicking on the links below.
Task
Answer
: It turns out that a rainbow is visible only when the sun’s height above the horizon does not exceed 42 degrees. On June 22 at noon the sun is higher in the sky and there is no way to see a rainbow.
Let's look at an experiment that explains the phenomenon of dispersion and the complex composition of white light.
Wave properties of light. Dispersion.
Interesting fact
From the surface of the earth, a rainbow usually looks like part of a circle, but from an airplane it can look like a whole circle!
Interesting optical physical phenomena: http://class-fizika.narod.ru/w25.htm
You can get acquainted with some optical phenomena by following the link to one of the pages of our school encyclopedia in mathematics and physics, “Algorithm for Success”.
Conclusion
The phenomenon of light dispersion, which explains the causes of the rainbow, allowed me to understand why white light paints the world around us with multi-colored colors. We see some transparent objects as red, others shimmering in different colors. And all thanks to the complex nature of white light, due to the fact that bodies reflect, refract and absorb light of different wavelengths in different ways. That’s why an ordinary piece of transparent glass and a diamond sparkle and shimmer in the sun’s rays.
Thus, we have proven that we see a rainbow due to the special properties of light waves, and it has its own interesting explanation, like many other optical phenomena in nature.
Rainbow in history, or the story of the rainbow
The rainbow is an impressive celestial phenomenon, its appearance along with the first spring rains is a sign of the rebirth of nature, the arrival of summer, the blessed union of heaven and earth, and the luxurious colors with which the rainbow shines, in the imagination of the ancestors, were the precious attire in which the heavens are clothed.
THE VERY NAME "RAINBOW" COMES FROM THE CORRECTION "PARADISE ARC". She was considered a good harbinger. Since ancient times, people have wondered about the nature of such a wonderful phenomenon as a rainbow. Humanity has associated the rainbow with many beliefs and legends. For example, there is an old English belief that a pot of gold can be found at the foot of the rainbow. The rainbow has inspired and will continue to inspire many poets, artists and photographers to create the most vibrant works of art.
In China, the rainbow symbolizes the heavenly dragon, the union of Heaven and Earth, the sign of the unification of yin and yang.
In Ancient India, a rainbow is the bow of Indra the Thunderer; In addition, in Hinduism and Buddhism, the “rainbow body” is the highest yogic state attainable in the realm of samsara.
In Islam, the rainbow consists of four colors - red, yellow, green and blue, corresponding to the four elements.
In some African myths, a celestial serpent is identified with a rainbow, which serves as a guardian of treasures or envelops the Earth in a ring. According to the beliefs of many African peoples, in those places where the rainbow touches the ground, you can find treasure (gems, cowrie shells or beads).
The American Indians identified the rainbow with a ladder along which one could climb to another world. Among the Incas, the rainbow was associated with the sacred Sun, and the Inca rulers wore its image on their coats of arms and emblems.
In Scandinavian mythology, the rainbow is the Bifrost Bridge connecting Midgard (the world of people) and Asgard (the world of the gods); the red stripe of the rainbow is an eternal flame that is harmless to the Aesir, but will burn any mortal who tries to climb the bridge. The Bifrost is guarded by As Heimdall.
In Ancient Greece, the goddess of the rainbow was the virgin Iris; she was depicted with wings and a caduceus. Her robe is made up of dew drops that shimmer in the colors of the rainbow.
In Armenian mythology, a rainbow is the belt of Tyr (the ancient Armenian deity of writing, arts and sciences).
In Slavic myths and legends, the rainbow was considered a magical heavenly bridge spanned from heaven to earth, a road along which angels descend from heaven to collect water from rivers. They pour this water into the clouds, and from there it falls as life-giving rain. In some areas they believe that a rainbow is a sparkling rocker with which the heavenly queen Gromovnitsa (an ancient goddess of spring and fertility) draws water from the sea-ocean and irrigates the fields with it. This rocker is kept in the sky and can be seen at night in the constellation Ursa Major.
In Christianity, the rainbow symbolizes forgiveness, a pact between God and man - Noah as a sign that there will be no more global flood. In the Christian symbolism of the Middle Ages, the three main colors of the rainbow are interpreted as images of the global flood (blue), global fire (red) and the new earth (green), and the seven colors are interpreted as images of the Seven Sacraments.
WHAT IS A RAINBOW AS A PHYSICAL PHENOMENON? What explanation does science give for this phenomenon?
A rainbow is an atmospheric optical and meteorological phenomenon observed when the rays of the Sun (sometimes the Moon) illuminate many water drops (rain or fog) in the Earth’s atmosphere as a result of the physical phenomenon of light dispersion, i.e. decomposition of white light into its component colors. A rainbow looks like a multi-colored arc or circle made up of different colors.
The Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle (384–322 BC) was the first to try to explain the phenomenon of the rainbow. He believed that the sun's rays, reflected in an unusual way from a rain cloud, form a cone of rainbow rays.
In 1304, the German monk Theodoric moved away from Aristotle's hypothesis about the collective reflection of light by raindrops and suggested that each droplet individually could create a rainbow. He confirmed his hypothesis by experimentally creating a model of a rainbow when light is reflected from a spherical glass flask filled with water.
Then the Persian astronomer Qutbad-Dinash-Shirazi (1236-1311), and possibly his student Kamal al-din al-Farisi (1260-1320), gave a fairly accurate explanation of this phenomenon. Around the same time, the German scientist Dieter of Freiburg proposed an explanation for the rainbow.
The angle between the incident light ray and the direction from the observer's eye towards the rainbow was first measured by Robert Bacon in 1266. It was found to be approximately 42 degrees.
Later, the general physical picture of the rainbow was described in 1611 by Mark Antony de Dominis. Based on experimental observations, he came to the conclusion that a rainbow is produced as a result of reflection from the inner surface of a raindrop and double refraction - at the entrance to the drop and at the exit from it. Further, in 1635, René Descartes gave a more complete explanation of the rainbow in his work Meteora. In particular, he correctly explained the mechanism of formation of primary and secondary rainbows, as well as the distribution of light intensity during the formation of a rainbow.
Then I. Newton, in his treatise “Optics,” supplemented the theory of Descartes and de Dominis by explaining the reasons for the appearance of the colors of the rainbow. In the rainbow, I. Newton identified seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
THE COMPLETE THEORY OF THE RAINBOW WITH DIFFRACTION OF LIGHT INVOLVED, which depends on the ratio of the wavelength of light and the size of the drop, was built only in the 19th century by scientists J.B. Erie (1836) and J.M. Pernter (1897).
It should be borne in mind that in fact the spectrum of the rainbow is continuous and its colors smoothly transition into each other through many intermediate shades, but despite this, in many countries of the world it is divided into 7 or 6 (for example, in Japan and English-speaking countries) flowers.
The colors in the rainbow are arranged in a sequence corresponding to the spectrum of visible light. As you know, there are mnemonic phrases for remembering this sequence. There are quite a lot of these phrases, in different languages. Here are some of them in Russian: Every Hunter Wants to Know Where the Pheasant Sits; How Once Jacques the Bell-Ringer Broke the Lantern with His Head; Mole Sewn Blue Sweatshirts for Sheep, Giraffe, Bunny, and also in English: RichardOfYorkGaveBattleInVain, etc. In these phrases, the initial letter of each word corresponds to the initial letter of the name of a specific color.
When I see a rainbow in the sky, I always rejoice and joke about how much longer we will live. :) A rainbow is a signal that there will no longer be such large-scale floods as the Great Flood on Earth. At least for a Christian, that's what a rainbow symbolizes.
How did the rainbow come into being?
Sometimes it seems that the rainbow has always existed, but the Old Testament says that God created the rainbow after the Great Flood destroyed all life on Earth. She became a sign, a promise to Noah’s family and descendants, to all living things, that there would no longer be a flood that would destroy all flesh. The rainbow has become a symbol of God's Covenant with man.
In order to make a rainbow, you need sunlight and droplets of water, which is why you can see a rainbow:
- after the rain;
- during fog;
- on the shore of a reservoir;
- near the fountain;
- while watering plants;
- near the waterfall.
What is a rainbow from a physical point of view?
Sunlight, which appears white to us, is made up of light waves of different wavelengths. The wavelength for each color is different, from red (the longest waves) to violet - the shortest. Mixing these colors produces white.
A rainbow occurs when light is refracted in drops of water. It is refracted, and a person sees all the colors of the spectrum accessible to the eye. In addition to the seven well-known colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, there are also countless shades and color transitions.
How is the attitude towards the rainbow reflected in the language?
Rainbows have always been a bit of magic, a complex and incomprehensible phenomenon. In the mythology of different countries there are beliefs associated with the rainbow, myths and legends. Yes, and I, too, being a modern person who knows the nature of the appearance of a rainbow, still believe that seeing it is a good sign. She has always been a symbol of something good, joyful, bright.
For example, the word “rosy” means “optimistic”, “set up for success” - “rosy prospects”, “rosy dreams”. The word “rainbow” is usually used when one wants to say “the whole spectrum”, “the whole completeness”, for example, “a rainbow of feelings”, “a rainbow of words”.
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Last year, my friends and I climbed the Holy Nose Peninsula on Lake Baikal. In the morning the weather was sunny, in the afternoon it became cloudy. In the middle of the climb we were caught in a downpour. But we kept going, hoping for the best. And for good reason. The sun came out again and a rainbow appeared in the sky. We perceived this natural phenomenon as a reward for our efforts and faith in ourselves.
Why does a rainbow appear
Divine mercy, a symbol of abundance, a shining rocker, a staircase to another world... The ancient people called the rainbow what they called it. And indeed, a rainbow looks like some kind of fairy-tale miracle. She's so lovely. But alas... This is a common natural phenomenon, and it has a scientific explanation.
A ray of light is the magician who sometimes turns into a multifaceted rainbow. Light consists of many colorful particles. Mixed together they give us white color. After rain, fog remains in the atmosphere. The sun, at an angle of 42 degrees, hits these transparent clumps and decomposes into different colors. We are able to distinguish only seven of them - green, red, blue, orange, cyan, violet, yellow. They are the ones who appear before our eyes after the rain. In fact, in a rainbow, one color smoothly transitions into another. But these transitional shades are elusive to the human eye. There are different rainbows:
DIY rainbow
The mechanism of rainbow formation is simple. Therefore, as a science experiment, you can do it at home with your children using a water hose. You can take a special hose with a sprayer, or clamp the neck and make the spray yourself. We direct the spray towards the sun. And voila! A rainbow appears in the splashes.
The same thing can be done in another way. You need to take a transparent glass of water and place it on the windowsill. Place a sheet of paper on the floor nearby. The window must be moistened with hot water. The sun's rays, passing through a glass of water, will disintegrate into colors. Thus, you can see a rainbow on paper. The main thing in this matter is to correctly adjust the position of the glass and paper.
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I have always loved observing nature and its phenomena. The rainbow constantly aroused my admiration and joy, while at the same time remaining a mystery. I was interested in how it appears, why there are so many colors in the rainbow, and why is it arched? The answers to these questions were found and turned out to be simple and interesting.
Why does a rainbow appear in the sky?
A ray of light is made up of particles. These particles are nothing more than segments of an electromagnetic wave having different lengths. They differ in color, but a person sees them as one ray of white color. And when this white light falls on a transparent drop of water, then several different colors can be distinguished.
If the light rays are reflected from the drop more than twice, then two rainbows are immediately visible.
What conditions are necessary for a rainbow to appear?
For a rainbow to appear, only two factors are needed - a light source and high humidity. And they, in turn, can be:
- Sky after rain.
- Drops of fog illuminated by the sun's rays.
- Waterfalls.
- The shore of a reservoir in sunny weather.
A rainbow is visible only when the rays do not fall on the drops at right angles. In this case, the light source should be located behind the observer.
What other rainbows are there?
In addition to the well-known arc-shaped rainbow, there are other varieties of this phenomenon.
A white (or foggy) rainbow appears when a faint fog is illuminated by sunlight. This phenomenon occurs rarely.
A fire rainbow looks like a glowing ring around the sun. It usually occurs when white crystals contained in clouds are hit by powerful, bright light.
Moonbows occur at night and are difficult to spot. Due to poor lighting and the characteristics of the human eye, it appears white. This rainbow is mainly visible during the full moon.
In fact, a rainbow is a circle. It’s just that its lower part is hidden by the horizon line, and we only see the upper part.
A rainbow is simply an unforgettable phenomenon that you want to look at without taking your eyes off. And don’t think about the laws of physics due to which it arises.
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I am, of course, an inquisitive person, but the desire to find out about how a rainbow appears, it didn’t occur to me. Until recently. I was riding on a tram and suddenly I began to notice that other passengers and people on the street were enthusiastically looking somewhere into the sky. I didn’t have a clear view of the object of their attention, but when I got off the tram, I saw the mostbig rainbow, which I have only ever seen. It was so huge and so bright, and it amazed me so much that I immediately had a desire to urgently find out: “How does such a miracle happen?”.
How does a rainbow appear in nature?
It’s good that great minds once asked this question, and now they don’t have to rack their brains over this problem. And we, unlike the ancient Indians, already know that rainbow- not a road leading to another world, but a simple physical phenomenon. Science explains the process this way: a rainbow is refraction of light and its reflection indrops of water, which contributes to the appearance of a spectral arc.
Soap bubble as a visual explanation
Bubble. It is transparent, just like a drop of water. The light fell on him, or rather - light beam. In this ray there is many colors, which are not visible to us. But as soon as the ray collides with the surface of the bubble, it seems will split into waves, some of which will be repelled from it, and some will penetrate inside the bubble. Then these two parts will meet. And then an almost life-like situation will happen: if their characters coincide, then the waves will strengthen each other, become brighter, if they do not coincide, they will weaken and fade. As a result of this tandem patterns and multi-colored rays are formed. Here's a rainbow for you.
Light plays in the same way with drops in the air, and as a result we we see a rainbow in the sky.
About rainbows beyond science
While wondering about the origin of the rainbow, I learned something else interesting:
- Rainbow became a prototype peace flag, authored by Aldo Capitini. During the Iraq War, the Italians hung rainbow flags from the balconies, thus expressing protest.
- Isaac Newton first identified only five colors of the rainbow. But later, wanting to draw a parallel between the colors of the spectrum and musical notes, he added blue and orange.
- Moonlight can also be refracted. The consequence of this process is lunar rainbow. The light of the moon is much weaker than the sun, so a person sees such a rainbow in the form white arc. But you can see all its colors by taking a photo with a DSLR camera using a long shutter speed.
- Most people are familiar with the saying from childhood: “Every hunter wants to know where the pheasant sits.” The abbreviation of which helps not to forget the sequence of the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
But there are many more between them transitional shades.
And yet, when you find explanations for such phenomena as rainbow, I want to quickly forget them and continue to believe in miracle. :)
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Red is the shortest wavelength, and violet- the longest in the visible spectrum. Passing through the boundary between air and water, each wavelength of light (color) changes its direction, but in different ways, each with its own angle of refraction. Due to the fact that the beam first enters the medium and the angle of refraction of each color is different, this is enhanced by the fact that the speed of passage through the medium is also different for each color. And when the ray leaves the medium and is refracted again, it already turns out to be 7 different rays.
Like this one white ray becomes seven rays of different colors.
This phenomenon of refraction and division of a ray into colors is called dispersion.
The rainbow is primary, when the light in the drop is reflected once, and secondary when light is reflected twice in a drop. In the secondary rainbow the order of colors is reversed - the outer color is violet, and in the primary rainbow it is red. This is a very beautiful and very rare natural phenomenon.
Double Rainbow
exists in nature a rainbow consisting of a first-order rainbow and a second-order rainbow. Between them there is a dark stripe, which is called the Alexander stripe, thanks to the philosopher who first described it in 200 BC - Alexander of Aphrodisias.
In laboratory conditions, scientists manage to obtain a much larger number of rainbows - three, four or more. But no one has ever seen more than two rainbows in nature.
Researchers
Rainbow phenomenon has interested people since the beginning of time. Indeed, it is difficult not to be interested in such a spectacle. There have been many beliefs associated with the rainbow, and until now, probably, every person, seeing a rainbow, feels it as a good omen.
The first to give a relatively accurate explanation of the rainbow phenomenon were Persian astronomer Qutb ad-din al-Shirazi (1236-1311). At about the same time, an explanation was given by German scientist Dieter of Freiburg. In 1611 he described his observations and gave physical explanations Mark Anthony de Dominis.
And yet, he gave the most complete explanation of the rainbow René Descartes in 1637. Later it Newton added in his treatise "Optics", explaining the reasons for the appearance of colors and the appearance of a rainbow of the first and second orders.
Nowadays, the question of how a rainbow appears is completely known and confirmed by numerous experiments. Based on this phenomenon and studies of other optical phenomena, scientists were able to draw many parallels and found rainbow-like natural phenomena, based on the same principle of refraction and separation of light.
Manifestations of dispersion in nature
- rainbow;
- red sunset- this is the same decomposition of light into a spectrum due to the different gas composition of the Earth’s atmosphere;
- play of light in diamonds is also observed due to dispersion;
- rainbow on soap bubbles and oil films;
- halo(rainbow circular glow around the Sun or Moon, and also happens around street lamps).
We can observe all these natural phenomena under certain conditions - when there is light source and medium for its refraction. Little ones rainbows are constantly present in our lives - be it a laser disc or the beveled side of a mirror reflecting a rainbow.
Experience
Clearly see the process of turning light into a rainbow you can do it by doing a simple experiment. You need to take a transparent bowl, pour water into it, and put a mirror on the bottom. Having placed a sheet of white paper perpendicular to the table, you need to shine a flashlight at an angle on the mirror so that the reflection appears on the sheet of paper. There you will see a rainbow.
It is very useful to conduct this experiment with children, simultaneously telling them about the nature of this phenomenon.
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How after the rain, especially if it was prolonged, it lifts your spirits rainbow!
This natural phenomenon has always surprised and delighted people. Many legends and beliefs are associated with the appearance of the rainbow.
How does a rainbow appear?
A rainbow occurs because light is refracted and reflected many times in droplets of water that float in the air after rain or in fog. Different colors in light are deflected differently, because of this we observe the decomposition of white light into a spectrum, i.e. we see a rainbow.
By the way, to see a rainbow, the light source, the sun, must be behind the observer.
Most often we are able to see a primary rainbow, but there are times when a secondary rainbow has been observed. The secondary rainbow is always less bright and appears around the first one. The appearance of a secondary rainbow is due to the fact that light is reflected twice in water droplets. Interestingly, the order of the colors in the secondary rainbow is reversed. That is, purple is on the outside and red is on the inside.
The sky between these two rainbows always appears darker and is called Alexander's stripe.
There are known cases of observation of rainbows of the third and even fourth order. True, the appearance of four rainbows has only been officially recorded 5 times over the past 250 years.
It must be said that in laboratory conditions it is possible to recreate a rainbow of almost any large order. For example, there is documentary evidence of the receipt of a rainbow of order two hundred.
Legends about the rainbow.
Since ancient times, people have attributed miraculous properties to the rainbow and told many legends about it. For almost all nations, a rainbow is a bright and good phenomenon, from which you can expect a lot of good things.
The ancient Greeks identified the rainbow with the goddess Iris. She was a goddess - a mediator between people and gods. She was depicted with beautiful golden wings and wearing clothes painted with all the colors of the rainbow.
The Arabs believed that during rain and thunderstorms, the god Kuzah fights with the forces of evil, and when the rain stops, he hangs his rainbow bow in the sky as a sign of victory.
The Slavs thought the same, but their god was named Perun. They also said that the rainbow drinks water from rivers and lakes, sends this water to the sky, then causing rain.
In China they believed that rainbow- heavenly dragon, mediator between heaven and earth.
Various peoples believed that the rainbow was a bridge between heaven and earth, or a rocker with which the goddess Lada draws water, or that it was the path to the next world, and the souls of the dead could descend to our world along the rainbow. They believed that a witch could steal the rainbow and cause a drought.
Bulgarians generally have a belief that those who pass under the rainbow will change their gender. Therefore, women who, for example, gave birth only to girls, tried to walk under the rainbow so that the next child would be born a boy.
The Bible says that the rainbow first appeared on Earth after the Great Flood, as a sign from God that such a disaster would not happen again. Also in Christianity, the rainbow is associated with the Virgin Mary, as a mediator between God and people.
It’s interesting that different peoples have different numbers of colors in the rainbow. In reality, of course, the spectrum is continuous, one color emerging from another. But, individual colors can be distinguished. We generally believe that there are 7 colors in the rainbow. In Great Britain there are 6 of them, in China - 5, and in Arab countries - only 4.