Eli5: What causes the rainbow effect to appear when sunlight shines through a piece of glass?
In: Physics
White light is made of all the colors of light, and each color of light has a different energy. Red is the lowest. Violet is the highest. When light goes through a weird piece of glass, or a rain drop, its path gets bent. The higher energy light is bent the least. The lower energy light is bent the most. This spreads the light out into a ‘fan’ of colors.
A rainbow is the combined effect of the color fans of thousands of raindrops.
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