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What is a Rainbow or What Happens When Light, Water and Air meet?      When light and water meet in the sky on a summer's day, for a few moments, a rainbow will appear. Such a beautiful sight!
This phenomena of the atmosphere appears during or immediately following local showers, when the sun is shining and the air
contains raindrops. A rainbow can best be seen with polarized sunglasses. We cannot follow the arc of a rainbow down below
the horizon, because we cannot see those droplets in the air below the horizon. But the higher we are above the ground, the
more of the rainbow circle we would see. That is why, from an airplane in flight, a rainbow will appear as a complete circle
with the shadow of the aitplane in the center.
The bow is divided into bands displaying the different colors of the spectrum and is formed by the refraction and reflection
of the sun's rays in drops of rain. Reflection is simply the return of light waves from the raindrop's surface. Light which
appears to be white, is really made up of a mixture of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet light.
When a shaft of sunlight enters a drop of water, a part of it does not pass directly through but is reflected from the inner
surface and emerges from the side from which it entered. Moreover, it is refracted both on entering and leaving the water
drop. This process, repeated in the same manner for an immense number of drops, produces the primary rainbow,
which appears in front of the observer, who has his back to the sun. It has the red band on the outer edge which are long
light waves and the blue-to-violet on the inner edge which are short light waves.
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Myths about Rainbows
The idea that a pot of gold can be found at the rainbow's end originated somewhere in old Europe. In Silesia,
an obscure area of eastern Europe, it was said that the angels put the gold there and that only a nude human could
obtain the prize. Hmm.....
Can you go under a rainbow's arch and come out the other side? Not according to the laws of physics. A
rainbow is all light and water. It is always in front of you while your back is to the sun. However, there is an old European
belief that anyone passing beneath the rainbow would be transformed, man into woman, woman into man! Hmm....
Well, that
would be less painful than going to a surgeon.
Do two people ever see the same rainbow? No. As the eyes of two people cannot occupy the same place in space at the same
time, each observer sees a different rainbow. Why? Well, because the raindrops are constantly in motion so its appearance
is always changing. Each time you see a rainbow, it is unique in its own spectacular way! Many people consider rainbows to
be an omen of some kind. It is an ancient desire rooted in our cultural mythologies.
The legends of many cultures see the rainbow as a kind of bridge between heaven and earth. One of the most beautiful sights
in nature, the rainbow has become in western culture a symbol of renewed hope; something lucky to look upon. To Iranian Moslems,
even the brilliance of the colors in a rainbow have significance. A prominent green means abundance, red means war, and yellow
brings death. The Arawak Indians of South America recognize the rainbow as a fortunate sign if it seen over the ocean, while
tribes in northeastern Siberia see it as the tongue of the sun. The North American Catawba Indians of the Southeast and the
Tlingit of the Northwest both regard it as the bridge between the living and the dead
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