Submitted by Oheligud t3_yh9wwi in explainlikeimfive
Super_NiceGuy t1_iucu3h8 wrote
Reply to comment by blow_up_the_outside in ELI5: Why are the colours in rainbows in separate lines? by Oheligud
To continue the question why does the rainbow have different wavelengths in different areas and why is it always in the same order? Is the rainbow always the same ratio of size of every “colors“ field compared to the total width? This is so fascinating.
Mephisto506 t1_iucuw38 wrote
Different wavelengths are bent at different angles, which is why you always see them in the same order.
Marlsfarp t1_iucva63 wrote
Yes, every rainbow looks the same. Rainbows are an illusion caused by the way light bounces around inside spherical drops of water. The angle light is bent as it passes from air to water and back again depends on wavelength.
MindStalker t1_iuczlf9 wrote
They are frequencies, it's the same order because red is the lowest frequency and violet is the highest frequency. When light hits water its path is bent based on it's frequency.
JackOClubsLLC t1_iud9epn wrote
This one is kind of hard to explain without pictures... or in a timely manner. Basically when the visible light goes through the medium that splits it into the rainbow it changes angle, and part of what determines how much the angle changes is the wavelength. The reason the order and ratio is the same is because the rainbow is basically the colors ordered from longest to shortest wavelength spead a based on the change in wavelength. For instance, if you pointed a light that contained all wavelengths but yellow at a prism the rainbow would look the same as it would with all colors with a missing band where the yellow would be because the absence of yellow light does not affect the wavelengths of the other colors. That last bit is actually super important in a handful of scientific fields.
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