Rainbows
Rainbows have captured people’s imaginations for centuries. Because rainbows exist in all parts of the world, they appear in the folklore of many different cultures. In Norse mythology, a rainbow acts a bridge between humans and the gods. When ancient Greeks saw a rainbow, they saw the goddess Iris dipping into the sea to refill the rain clouds. In Chinese mythology, when the goddess Nüwa patched a hole in the sky with five colors of stones, she created a rainbow.
Newton’s prism experiment
In the 1600s, the physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton revealed the science behind rainbows. He set up a triangular prism in front of a beam of sunlight. Light passed through the prism, projecting the colors of the rainbow as it exited. His experiment proved that white light was actually made up of many colors.
What makes a rainbow?
The rainbow seen in sky occurs when water droplets, sunlight, and a viewer (someone who sees the rainbow) come together. To see the rainbow, viewers must have their backs to the sun and look into the rain or mist at about a forty-degree angle. The water droplets are like smaller versions of Newton’s prism. When sunlight enters a droplet, the light slows down and bends. The light then separates into colors as it exits the droplet, projecting a rainbow to the viewer.
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