In the 17th century, it was precisely Isaac Newton who realized that when we separate white light with a prism (or raindrops), we get the visual spectrum of colored light (also known as a rainbow ). In the visual spectrum, each color mixes with its respective ‘neighbors’. It is not a distinct set of colors, but a spectrum. But Newton decided that we should probably divide this spectrum into chunks, so that we can more easily talk about it. By passing a beam of white light through a glass prism, the physicist saw that it was separated into pure colors, the same ones that appear in the rainbow. In both cases, the chromatic spectacle is due to the phenomenon of the refraction of light when it passes from one medium -the air- to another -the glass or a drop-, it comes out decomposed into a rich range of colors, ranging from violet to Red. Specifically, it is considered that these can be defined in seven fundamental colors: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue and violet.
The rainbow is a visual phenomenon that never seems to lose its magic, no matter how many times you have seen one of these large multi-colored arches in the sky.
Rainbow colors are caused by a combination of refraction (bending) and reflection (bouncing) of sunlight by water droplets in the atmosphere. Also, the angles of the light rays reaching your eyes from the points where they meet the water droplets must be within a certain range, and at the correct distance from you.
Best time to see a rainbow?
The best time to spot a rainbow is right after a storm has just finished. This is because during the storm itself, the clouds tend to block sunlight (although if the sun can pass through the right place, this limitation disappears), and shortly after the storm ends, the water droplets that They have not fallen to earth in the form of rain they evaporate quickly.
Because we need reflected sunlight to come directly towards us, the Sun should be more or less behind us to gaze at the rainbow. This means that you should be able to see the shadow of your own head, and it should appear in the same general place as any rainbow.
One of the most fascinating facts about the rainbow is that it is impossible for two people to see the exact same rainbow. You may think that you are seeing the same thing; You could even describe it to the person next to you and you will notice that it looks like what you have described but you are not really seeing the same thing. For what reason?
When you are looking at a rainbow, you are looking at the light that reflects off the raindrops on the horizon. But the horizon is always different, although sometimes only a little different from the others, and vice versa. And it is that your eyes and those of another person cannot be in the same place in space simultaneously, so you will never be able to contemplate the same rainbow.
