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
>shouldn’t you see many tiny rainbows
I’ll address this specifically as others have glossed over it.
You would see multiple rainbows if we had multiple suns. And if we were really close to the sun, we’d be dead, but there would also be no rainbows.
The sun is far enough away that the light coming from it acts a bit like a laser. All the light points in one direction. The sunlight hits the water droplets and reflect off it just like shining a laser pointer at a screen.
When you shine the laser pointer at the screen, only that spot on the screen lights up. Now imagine that the color of the light from the laser pointer changed based on where you pointed it on the screen, blue in the middle, through the color spectrum to red on the outside edge. As you move the laser around, you are only seeing specific colors in specific spots. If you expand the laser’s light from a dot to a disc big enough to light up the whole screen, you’ll see all the colors.
Now, while it’s true that each droplet shines all the colors of the rainbow, each of those colors are going in different directions and the only color you see is the one pointed at your face. And like the laser pointer and screen example, what color that is pointed at your face is determined by that droplet’s position in the sky.
If you need a visual to understand (like I do), this youtube video is really helpful:
yknow how you can take a hose with one of those fancy nozzles and put it on mist and see a rainbow?
its like that except the whole sky
You *would* see many tiny rainbows, if you could look at it from many perspectives simultaneously.
Why does this keep coming up!? How many times is this question going to trend?
Probably the [best explanation of rainbows](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hl7BLXq5vA) I’ve ever seen. Not ELI5 though, more like college physics level.
[Found a 1 minute explanation as well](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRmdZVvzMzQ), closer to ELI5 level.
Everyone is talking about the droplets, it it’s solely about the light source and your position relative to it. You see it when there’s is spray inside near a bright lamp and get a smaller rainbow.
Rainbows are a bit like a mirror, as others have said, they’re unique to everyone because of positions, colour perception in your eye etc.
Our eyes are picking up all the tiny rainbows and merging them into one consistent pattern as each drop is in a slightly different place each one has a small bit of the puzzle – https://youtu.be/usEcoMirsu8
TIL that a rainbow would look different to each person depending on their angle of viewing. Thanks to everyone who attempted to ELI5
Ok, having learned something from all the info here, here’s my attempt to ELI5 it: (I may be mixing up refract and reflect, but I’ll just pick one). Maybe ELI9,since we do need to talk about angles.
Sun hits a raindrop and light refracts off in all sorts of directions. If the drop is at a specific angle to you in relation to the sun, you will see that refracted light as a color. So for this example, lets say that angle is 45 degrees.
So for this example, you have the sun behind you and look directly away from it. We’ll call that point zero degrees. Now we know that a raindrop at 45 degrees from there will refract color to you. 45 degrees to the left you see red, 45 degrees up you see red, 45 degrees to the right you see red. Since every point 45 degrees from the center is showing you red, it forms a red circle around the center. You don’t see the bottom of the circle because the ground is there and you can’t see rain under the ground.
As for the other colors, each color in the rainbow is created by a slightly different angle. So at 44 degrees you see orange, 43 yellow, etc.
Latest Answers