How are rainbows formed. I know it’s about refraction from water droplets, but shouldn’t you see many tiny rainbows instead of one big one.
In: Physics
White light enters each drop.
Each drop ~~splits~~ *separates the light into different wavelengths, sending each colour out at a slightly different angle.
You only see the colours that are pointing in the direction of your eyeballs, so a very small range of wavelengths for each raindrop.
So for the raindrops that are lower down, you will only see the purple light, as the other colours are going off at different angles. You see a little bit of purple light from each raindrop which is at that particular angle to your eyeball.
From the raindrops higher up, you only see the red light.
and it’s the same for each raindrop in between.
[here is a picture](http://www.rebeccapaton.net/rainbows/rnbwbmp.gif)
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