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)
Go outside on a sunny clear day. Get the water hose and spray a fine mist up in the air next to you. Rotate the mist around your body until you find the rainbow. Now if you look carefully you can see the water particles each acting as a prism.
Each drop if water is sending out all the colors, but in different directions. Where you are standing you see all the red from those at the correct angle from you. That’s why it’s a circle. all the red part of the rainbow is at the same angle from you just a different direction. Same for each of the other colors. The sun is behind you so the rainbow shifts a little bit when you move but not too much.
Every person sees a different rainbow. You aren’t even seeing the same rainbow from moment to moment. it’s all just an interesting effect of lots of little water drops in the sky refracting and reflecting to your eye.
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