Most of us know the order of a rainbow’s colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, dark blue, purple – but my question is why is the order like this, and not different? Does this has something to do with some ultra high level of physics?
Also this is my first ever ELI5, if I’m doing something wrong feel free to point it out for me.
In: Physics
White light is made up of waves of different lengths.
When white light is shined through fine water droplets, those droplets break down the white light into its separate parts; the different waves that are visible to our eyes.
(They don’t really break it down, it’s more like magnifying a gazillion times, so you can see what the white light is ‘made of’. If you have an old inkjet printer, try printing a grey area. It will look grey, but if you look closely, the grey is actually made up of Blue, red and yellow dots. Same goes for light. Look VERY closely, and you’ll see the different colors. The water vapor between you and the light source, usually the sun, will do the magnifying for you.)
Violet has the shortest wavelength, and red the longest. Every other color is in between.
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