Whenever we see a rainbow, why do we see red, orange, yellow, etc. on the top and not on the bottom??

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Whenever we see a rainbow, why do we see red, orange, yellow, etc. on the top and not on the bottom??

In: Physics

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

A rainbow is caused by the sunlight passing from behind you. As it hits the raindrop, it refracts. It is reflected off the back of the raindrop, and refracts again as it passes back out towards your eye.

Refraction is a change in direction of light, caused by a change in the speed of light as it passes from one material (air) to another (water).

The thing is. Blue light refracts more than red light. So red light changes direction a little bit and blue changes direction a lot.

Hence the blue ends up lower than the red.

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