Happy... Wednesday! Today's Science Solutions blog prompt is to explain how rainbows form and why they look the way they do.
Yesterday when I was in the library instead of CST testing, I looked up the answer in a book about optics. Basically, the answer is that the gases in the sky reflect off of the clear water droplets (rain), recreating a spectrum in the shape of a perfect half-circle in the sky. This is the same principle that we see applied in the famous picture of a prism refracting light. Of course, as with all colors, a rainbow has no infinite form and we only see it as such because it is all our eyes allow us to see. Make any sense?
This ties into the current unit we're studying, which is Chapter 3 and focuses on light and optics. In addition to learning the basics of color and light on the electromagnetic spectrum, we've also studied eyeballs and their functions a bit. In fact, on Monday, we dissected and examined a sheep's eyeball. Our test on the chapter is huge for our fourth-quarter Science grade, and it's this Friday! Yikes! I've already studied some of this, so really, I'm trying to become more well-versed on the subject. Optics is really interesting to me. It seems small and hard to understand, but the functions of our eyes and the way we see and perceive light and things like rainbows and mirrors are all actually quite important.
Yesterday when I was in the library instead of CST testing, I looked up the answer in a book about optics. Basically, the answer is that the gases in the sky reflect off of the clear water droplets (rain), recreating a spectrum in the shape of a perfect half-circle in the sky. This is the same principle that we see applied in the famous picture of a prism refracting light. Of course, as with all colors, a rainbow has no infinite form and we only see it as such because it is all our eyes allow us to see. Make any sense?
This ties into the current unit we're studying, which is Chapter 3 and focuses on light and optics. In addition to learning the basics of color and light on the electromagnetic spectrum, we've also studied eyeballs and their functions a bit. In fact, on Monday, we dissected and examined a sheep's eyeball. Our test on the chapter is huge for our fourth-quarter Science grade, and it's this Friday! Yikes! I've already studied some of this, so really, I'm trying to become more well-versed on the subject. Optics is really interesting to me. It seems small and hard to understand, but the functions of our eyes and the way we see and perceive light and things like rainbows and mirrors are all actually quite important.
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