Rainbow in Our Life
Natural physics and artificial rainbow
Can we create a rainbow?
In 1672, Newton tried to prove that light is made of particles and not of waves.
Newton passed a beam of white light through two prisms, which were held at such an angle that it split into a spectrum when passing through the first prism and was recomposed, back into white light, by the second prism.
Refraction explained
When light passes different medium, its speed is changed, hence it changes its direction. When this happens, we can say simply that light is bent.
A higher refractive index will slow down light and change direction more as it enters the substance.
But whenever light enters medium with a lower refractive index (such as from water into air) it will be sped up and bent away from the normal line.
Prism experiment performed by Sir Isaac Newton demonstrates that white light is composed of different color spectrums which are having different wavelengths. Each of this color is refracted (“bent”) when light is passed through a prism. Each of them is refracted with different angles and make them separated and displaying each of their true colors. This is when we finally see the different colors.
A rainbow is created when light enters each tiny drop of rain and refracted as what happens with the prism experiment by Sir Isaac Newton.
We can try creating our own rainbow in our room by spraying water into the air and let the sunlight shines through our window and enters the sprayed water. Hence, we can make a lot of rainbows in our life.
