What is a rainbow? Detailed answer

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What is a rainbow? Detailed answer

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What is a rainbow?

The rainbow is one of the most beautiful natural phenomena, and people have long thought about its nature. Even Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, tried to explain the cause of the rainbow.

A sunbeam or ordinary beam of white light is actually a combination of all colors. You have probably noticed what happens when a beam of light hits the bevelled edge of a mirror or the surface of a soap bubble. The white beam splits into different colors. We will see red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.

An object that can decompose a beam of light into its components is called a "prism". The formed colors create a strip of colored matching lines, which is called the "spectrum".

A rainbow is a large curved spectrum, or a band of colored lines, formed as a result of the decomposition of a beam of light passing through raindrops. In this case, raindrops act as a prism.

A rainbow appears only during a downpour, when it rains and the sun shines at the same time. It is necessary to be strictly between the sun (it should be behind) and the rain (it should be in front of you). Otherwise, you won't see the rainbow! The sun sends out its rays, which, falling on the raindrops, create a spectrum. The sun, your eyes and the center of the rainbow must be in line!

If the sun is high in the sky, it is impossible to draw such a straight line. That is why rainbows can only be observed in the early morning or late afternoon. The morning rainbow means the sun is in the east and the rain is in the west. In an afternoon rainbow, the sun is in the west and the rain is in the east.

Superstitious people believed that the rainbow is a bad omen. They believed that the souls of the dead pass into the other world along the rainbow, and if a rainbow appeared, this means someone's imminent death.

Author: Likum A.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

Is our skin changing?

The skin is made up of two layers of tissue. One of them is a thicker inner layer called the dermis, or corium. On top of it covers a thin layer of cells called the epidermis. There are no blood vessels in the epidermis. In fact, it consists of dead cells. Only the lowest layer of the epidermis receives nourishment and is alive.

The cells that make up this layer perform an important function: they divide and give rise to new cells. The upper layers of the epidermis grow as a result of this work of the lower layer, which produces cells for them. New cells are forced out to the outside, thus being cut off from the source of nutrition, and die. Chemical changes occur with them: they turn into scaly epithelial cells.

Summing up, we can say that the lower part of the epidermis consists of cells that give rise to new cells, and its upper part consists of dead cells that have become scaly. The upper layers are sloughed off as the lower layers give rise to new cells.

Thus, our skin daily produces billions of new cells and loses just as many dead, scaly ones. These tiny dead cells are especially noticeable on black stockings when you take them off at night. This process is ongoing and thanks to it our skin looks like new for many years.

But in fact, during the course of life, it is not the same skin that serves us: it is constantly updated with us. That is why all sorts of stains on it, for example from ink, iodine, resin or rust, soon disappear. The top layer peels off and a new one takes its place. In total, there are about thirty such layers of scaly dead cells, and when one of them is erased, new ones come to replace it from the lower layers. And the supply of new cells is never depleted.

Test your knowledge! Did you know...

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