A magical natural phenomenon: interesting facts about the rainbow. How is a rainbow formed? Different types of rainbow atmospheric phenomena

Article “Unusual in the ordinary. Rainbow"

Savostyanova Svetlana Anatolyevna, teacher of physics and mathematics, GAPOU MO "Egoryevsk Industrial and Economic College"
Description. I bring to your attention an educational article about rainbows. The article is written in the form of a story-conversation between a Dreamer, a Theorist, a Poet and an Artist. This material will be useful to schoolchildren, science teachers, and teachers of after-school groups. The article material can be used to prepare a message or report, conduct extracurricular activity, for the design of a thematic wall newspaper. The article is aimed at middle-level students (grades 5-8); partial use of the material is also possible for younger students.
Target: expanding schoolchildren's understanding of the rainbow.
Tasks:
- continue to develop knowledge about the optical phenomenon - the rainbow;
- develop cognitive interest;
- cultivate a sense of beauty, instill interest in the study of natural phenomena.

Dreamer.
Multi-colored arc
Hanging above the ground,
As if someone dropped it
A rocker from the sky.
(N. Silina)
What is this, guys? Rainbow! It would be great to drive or walk along it! They say you can’t... And why?
Theorist. Ozhegov’s dictionary gives the following definition: “A rainbow is a multi-colored arc in the firmament, formed as a result of the refraction of sunlight in raindrops. Colors of the rainbow (colors of the solar spectrum).” Unfortunately, you won't be able to walk on it.
Rainbow is a natural optical phenomenon. It provides a unique opportunity to observe the decomposition of white light into a spectrum in natural conditions. I'll tell you how a rainbow is formed.

It always occurs after rain. Somewhere between the Sun and the observer it is still raining. Sunlight, passing through drops of water, is repeatedly reflected and refracted in them, like in small prisms, and rays of different colors come out of the drops at different angles. If the raindrops are large (1-2 mm in diameter), then the rainbow is very bright, the stripes are clearly visible in it. If the drops are smaller, the rainbow appears faded and blurry. When the Sun rises above 42 degrees above the horizon, the rainbow is not visible from the Earth's surface. The sequence of color stripes is always the same: inside the arc there is a purple stripe, which first turns into blue, cyan, then green, yellow, orange and, finally, red, forming an arc with outside.
Poet. This amazing natural phenomenon has long been of interest not only to scientists, but also to poets. This is how Fyodor Tyutchev described the rainbow in his poem:
How unexpected and bright
In the damp blue sky,
Aerial arch erected
In your momentary celebration!
One end stuck into the forests,
Gone behind the clouds for others -
She covered half the sky
And she became exhausted at the height.

Oh, in this rainbow vision
What a treat for the eyes!
It is given to us for a moment,
Catch him - catch him quickly!
Look - it has already turned pale,
Another minute, two - and then what?
Gone, somehow gone completely,
What do you breathe and live by?
(August 5, 1865, Roslavl)
Dreamer. It is beautifully said, and indeed this phenomenon is observed for a short period of time. Is there anything else about rainbows?
Poet. This is how S. Petrushkov describes her appearance:
The rain has stopped, the storm has passed,
Rain dew glistens on the leaves.
Transparent puddles on clean paths -
Do not leave the house for a walk in sandals.
And in the sky, where the blue cloud hangs,
The beautiful rainbow is burning brightly!

Theorist. Guys, the decomposition of white light into a spectrum is called dispersion. Isaac Newton explained dispersion; he identified 7 colors in the spectrum, but this division is arbitrary. The colors blend smoothly into each other and have many shades. There are special phrases that allow us to correctly remember the order of the spectrum:
Every Hunter Wants to Know Where the Pheasant Sits!
How Brave Jean the Beller Knocked Down a Lantern with His Head!
Poet. Elena Blaginina in her poem “Rainbow” describes a seven-color rainbow this way, listing all its colors:
Rain, rain, don't rain, don't rain, wait!
Come out, come out, little golden bottom of the sun!
I'll run to admire the rainbow arc,
I’ll lie in wait for a seven-colored flower in the meadow.
I can’t look enough at the red arc,
Behind the orange, behind the yellow I see a new arc.
This new arc is greener than the meadows,
And behind her is a blue earring, like my mother’s.
I can’t get enough of the blue arc,
And behind this purple one,
I'll take it and run...
The sun set behind the haystacks. Where are you, rainbow-arc?
Theorist. Sometimes you can observe two, less often three, multi-colored arcs at once. The first rainbow is created by rays reflected once inside the drops, the second by rays reflected twice. Imagine, in 1948 in Leningrad, four rainbows appeared among the clouds over the Neva! And being on an airplane high above the ground, you can see a rainbow in the shape of a circle.

Dreamer. Why does a rainbow have an arc shape? Why is it not like the letter “P” in the sky, for example?
Theorist. The shape of a rainbow is determined by the shape of the water droplets in which sunlight is refracted. And water droplets ideally have a spherical shape. Of course, one drop will not give such a beautiful effect and the rainbow that we see is formed by a large number of droplets. At every moment, a rainbow is formed by the refraction of sunlight in new and new drops. Raindrops are falling. The place of the fallen drop is taken by another drop and manages to send its colored rays into the rainbow, followed by the next one, and so on. Besides, everyone sees their own rainbow!
Dreamer. Since I can’t walk, I’ll draw my own rainbow, especially not difficult, the main thing is to have colored pencils or paints and know the sequence of colors. Did anyone else besides me draw a rainbow?
Artist. Of course, Dreamer, even kids can draw rainbows. But you can also see a rainbow on the canvases of famous artists, because the rainbow motif is one of the favorites in the art of romanticism. It is present in the landscapes of many famous artists.

On some canvases it is a rainbow melting in the sky. There are dim colors, the rainbow is so subtle, ephemeral. On others it is like a monumental arch, like a support in a temple of nature. And somewhere it gives the landscape a fabulous quality and brightness.

Don't forget about her contemporary artists(the names of the artists, the paintings are located from right to left: Oksana Zbrutskaya, Kovalchuk, Joseph Abrisan, Elena Lukina).

Dreamer. Indian sages said: “Don’t look for miracles, there are none. Seek knowledge - it is there. And everything that people call miracles is one degree or another of knowledge.”. Today we know what a rainbow is and how it is formed. But I still want to call this amazingly beautiful natural phenomenon a miracle. And I am a little bit, but I continue to believe that where the rainbow goes one end into the ground, you can dig up a pot of gold.
The arch of the rainbow is the creator's favor,
It combines air, moisture, light -
Everything without which there is no life for the world.
He is a wondrous vision in a black cloud
Shows us...
(Ivan Bunin, Rainbow, 1922)

Literature
1. Pavlenko Yu.G. The beginnings of physics: Textbook - M.: Publishing house "Exam", 2007.
2. Encyclopedia for children. T.8. Astronomy - M.: Avanta +, 1998.

Rainbow - this magnificent colorful phenomenon has long captured the imagination of people. Looking at a rainbow, you want to believe in miracles and magic. Which natural phenomenon can compare in beauty with a rainbow? The appearance of a rainbow in the sky means that good weather will soon come and the bad weather will end. There are many legends about the rainbow, which you will learn about from this article. We will also try to understand in more detail the reasons for the appearance of this wonderful natural phenomenon and learn about interesting facts about rainbows. Read the article, ask questions and share your impressions in the comments.

In the ancient Indian epic “Romayana” we find the expression “the seven-colored bow of the Thunderer.” Thunderer is the supreme god, the king of kings Indra. The ancient Greeks saw the rainbow as a mediator between heaven and earth, that is, between gods and people. They identified the rainbow with the beautiful Iris and depicted her dressed in silk, which intersected with all seven colors. Iris's indispensable attribute was golden wings. They symbolized her fickle nature: after all, a rainbow always appears and disappears unexpectedly.

The Arabs believed that the rainbow was the bow of the god of light Kuzakh. After a grueling struggle with the forces of darkness that sought to prevent the sun from appearing in the sky, Kuzakh invariably emerged victorious and hung a rainbow bow on the clouds. Since ancient times, the Slavs considered a rainbow after heavy rain to be a harbinger of the victory won by the god Perun over the spirit of evil.

Thunder and lightning alone are not enough to create a rainbow. If the sky is overcast and there is no shadow on the ground, you cannot see the rainbow. And only when the sun breaks through the layers of clouds are the conditions created for its appearance. Beautiful! Changeable and elusive!

Explaining the appearance of a rainbow in the sky from a theoretical point of view is not particularly difficult. This is elementary optics. How do rain and sun draw a rainbow!?

As you know, light consists of a combination of several colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, cyan and violet. White light passing through the prism is reflected on the other side with all the colors of the rainbow. But in order to understand what a rainbow is, you need to understand what happens inside the prism and how white light emits so many colors.

A prism is a trihedron, usually made of clear glass or plastic. The prism “draws” a mini-rainbow by decomposing complex light into a spectrum when a narrow strip of white light hits one of the faces of the triangle. The scattering of light in a prism occurs due to the so-called “refractive index” of the glass. Each material has its own distinctive refractive index. When light passes through a material (such as light traveling through air and striking a glass prism), the difference in refractive indices between the air and the glass causes the light to bend. The bending angle is different from the wavelength of the light. And as white light passes through the two planes of the prism, different colors bend (refract) and something like a rainbow appears. The rainbow itself is created by raindrops acting as tiny prisms. Light enters a raindrop, reflects off the other side of the raindrop, and exits. During this process, light is decomposed into a spectrum, just as it happens in a transparent triangular prism. The angle between the incoming light beam and the outgoing light beam is 42 degrees for red and 40 degrees for violet. Due to the difference in bending angles, a rounded rim appears on the sky, i.e. rainbow. Sometimes two rainbows may appear at once. A second rainbow can form because some raindrops can be reflected twice at once. In order for two reflections to occur simultaneously, droplets of a certain size are needed. The basic process of creating a rainbow is the refraction (refraction) or “bending” of light. Light bends, or rather changes its direction, when it moves from one environment to another. Rainbows occur because light travels at different speeds in different environments.

So, the bend of a ray of light falls into a transparent prism. One side of the light wave is slightly slower than the other, so the beam passes through the air-glass interface at a different angle (essentially the beam of light is reflected from the surface of the prism). The light turns again when it leaves the prism because one side of the light is moving faster than the other. In addition to the process of bending light itself, the prism separates white light into its component colors. Each color of white light has its own characteristic frequency, causing the colors to travel at different speeds as they pass through the prism.

The color that is slowly refracted in the glass bends more when it gets from the air into the prism, because in different environments color moves at different speeds. The color moving faster in the glass does not weaken significantly, so it does not bend as much. Due to this, all the colors of the rainbow that make up white light are separated by frequency when passing through the glass. If glass refracts light twice, as a prism does, a person can see all the separated colors of white light much better. This is called scattering. Raindrops can refract and scatter light just as they do inside a prism. Under certain conditions, as a result of such refraction of light, a rainbow appears in the sky. Each drop is unique: the drop has a completely different size and consistency compared to a glass prism. When white sunlight penetrates a few raindrops at a certain angle, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet colors appear in the sky, i.e. rainbow. The colors of the visible light spectrum are red and violet at the end of the rainbow.

As light passes through air into a drop of water, the constituent colors of white light begin to scatter, with the speed of each color depending on their frequency. The violet color reflected in the drop is refracted at an obtuse angle, and the red color at an acute angle. On the right side of the drop, some light escapes into the air, and the rest is reflected back. Some reflected light comes out from the left side of the drop, and refraction occurs again as the light moves toward the air.

Thus, each drop scatters white sunlight into its component colors. But why do we see wide bands of color, as if each rainy area is scattering only one specific color? This is because we only see the color that comes from each drop. When, for example, drop A scatters white light, at a certain angle only one red light comes out, visible to our eye. Other color rays are refracted at a different angle, so we don't see them. Sunlight penetrates the falling drops equally, so all the nearest drops emit red light. The speed of drop B across the sky is slightly lower, so it will no longer be able to emit red light. But since all other colors have a smaller wavelength, drop B in this case will emit orange and all other colors of the rainbow in descending order. The last color to close the rainbow is violet with the smallest wave of glow. If you look at a rainbow from above, you can see a whole circle consisting of seven thin circles of different colors. From the ground, we can only see the arch of the rainbow appearing on the horizon. Sometimes two rainbows appear in the sky at once, one of which has a clear outline, while the other looks like a blurry reflection of the first. A faint rainbow is formed according to the same principle as a clear one, but in this case the light is reflected from the surface inside the drop not once, but twice. As a result of this double reflection, the light comes out of the drop at a different angle, so the second rainbow appears slightly taller. If you look closely, you will notice that the colors in the second rainbow are reflected in the opposite order compared to the first rainbow. As a result of such refraction of light and scattering of rays, a rainbow appears. The sunlight and water that are familiar to us together create a new work of art, given to us by Mother Nature.

Brilliant with bright, magnificent colors, the rainbow amazed the poetic imagination of primitive peoples. It either stretches above the ground, or sparkles in the very garden of Iria, where birds of paradise and winged souls rest on it.

The rainbow was recognized as having a special, divine character, like all luminaries, therefore, just as in nature the rainbow is on the verge between a thunderstorm and sunlight, so in folk tales it is associated with the god of thunder and lightning Perun and the light goddess Lada, one from the names of which, by the way, is Perunitsa the Thunderer. In legends, the rainbow is compared to a wide variety of objects.

Since ancient times, the Slavs have believed that the rainbow “drinks” water from lakes, rivers and seas: like a snake, dipping its sting into the water, it draws water into itself, and then releases it, which is why it rains; At the ends of the rainbow a pot of ancient gold coins is hung. The legend depicts three deities, one of whom holds a rainbow and raises water from the river with it, another creates clouds from this water, and the third, breaking them, causes rain. This is like a triune embodiment of Perun.

The Western Slavs have a belief that a witch can steal a rainbow and hide it, which means causing a drought on the earth.

There are also such beliefs: a rainbow is a bridge between heaven and earth; or the belt of the goddess Lada; or the path to the next world, along it the souls of the dead sometimes come to the sinful earth. This is a symbol of abundance, and if the rainbow does not appear for a long time, one should expect famine and crop failure.

In some places they believed that the rainbow was a shiny rocker with the help of which Lada Perunitsa draws water from the sea-ocean, and then irrigates fields and fields with it. This wonderful rocker is kept in the sky, and at night - in the constellation Ursa Major. Riddles about the rainbow also retained its likeness to a rocker and buckets of water: “Two seas hang on an arc,” “A multi-colored rocker hangs over a river.”

Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians and Western Ukrainians believe that those who pass under the rainbow change their gender. In western Bulgaria they believed that “if someone wants to change his gender, he must go to the river during the rain and where the rainbow “drinks water”, in the same place he must drink, and then he will turn from a man into a woman and from a woman to a man." This property of the rainbow can be used to magically change the gender of the unborn child. "If a woman who has given birth to only girls goes to drink water in the place where the rainbow “drinks,” then after that she will have boys will be born."

In Bulgaria, there is also the idea that the rainbow is “the belt of the Lord, which he rinses during the rain or dries after the rain.” At the same time, the rainbow is also called the “samovil belt.” Serbs and Croats say that God uses the rainbow to show women how to weave and what colors to use.

In Ancient India, a rainbow is the bow of Indra, the thunder god; in addition, in Hinduism and Buddhism, the “rainbow body” is the highest yogic state attainable in the realm of samsara.

In Islam, the rainbow consists of four colors - red, yellow, green and blue, corresponding to the four elements. In some African myths, a celestial serpent is identified with a rainbow, which serves as a guardian of treasures or envelops the Earth in a ring. American Indians identify the rainbow with a ladder along which one can climb to another world. Among the Incas, the rainbow was associated with the sacred Sun, and the Inca rulers wore its image on their coats of arms and emblems. Among the Chibcha-Muisca Indians, the rainbow was considered a good deity. In the specific mountain conditions of the Cordillera, an amazing a natural phenomenon: against the background of a foggy haze, a rainbow sometimes appears, as if framing a many times enlarged reflection of the observer himself. The main sanctuary dedicated to the goddess of the Rainbow, Chibcha, was erected next to the Tekendama mountain waterfall, where the brightest arc always lights up as soon as the rays of the sun hit the water splashes. IN Scandinavian mythology"Bifrest" ("shaking road", "shaking path") - a rainbow bridge connecting heaven and earth. He is guarded by the guardian of the gods, Heimdall. Before the end of the world and the death of the gods, the bridge collapses. IN Ancient Greece the goddess of the rainbow was the virgin Iris, the messenger of the gods, the daughter of Thaumant and the oceanid Electra, the sister of the harpies. She was depicted with wings and a caduceus. Her robe is made up of dew drops shimmering with the colors of the rainbow. According to the ancients, the rainbow connected heaven and earth, therefore, with the development of Olympic mythology, Iris was considered a mediator between gods and people. Unlike Hermes, Iris carried out the orders of Zeus and Hera without showing her own initiative. The canonical image of Iris is a winged maiden (usually sitting next to Hera), holding a vessel of water, with which she delivered water to the clouds.

According to the Bible, the rainbow was created by God after the global flood, as a sign of his promise to never send a flood to people again. In the Talmudic tradition, the rainbow was created by God on the sixth day of creation. For the Greeks, the rainbow is a manifestation of the goddess Iris. In medieval Christian depictions of Christ on the day Last Judgment is seated on a rainbow. The rainbow is also associated with the Virgin Mary, the mediator between God and people. The symbolism of the rainbow depends on the number of colors in it.
So in China, there are five colors in the rainbow, the combination of which represents the unity of ying and yang. Based on the Aristotelian triad, the Christian West sees in it only three (symbol of the Trinity) primary colors: blue (the heavenly nature of Christ), red (the passion of Christ) and green (the mission of Christ on earth).
The rainbow is an image of peaceful heavenly fire, in contrast to lightning as an expression of anger heavenly powers. The appearance of a rainbow after a thunderstorm, against the backdrop of peaceful nature, together with the sun, made it possible to interpret it as a symbol of peace. In the Bible, the rainbow appears (in the episode with Noah's Ark) as a sign that the water will no longer flood; in general it is seen as a symbol of the covenant made between Yahweh and people. The hemisphere of the rainbow was considered a sphere (the other half of which is supposedly immersed in the ocean), which
emphasized the divine perfection of this natural phenomenon. According to a common interpretation, the red color of the rainbow represents the wrath of God, yellow - generosity, green - hope, blue - peace natural forces, purple - greatness.

In the sky the rainbow shines and sparkles,
It’s as if the passage through it is open to us.
A multi-colored ray descended from the sky,
The forest shines in the beautiful rainbow dust.

The foliage shimmers like emerald,
Reflections of the rainbow are visible here and there,
The forest plunged into a fairy tale and fell silent,
He wants to hold on to the wonderful moment.

Science has long explained everything to us,
But it is not possible to fully understand nature.
Seeing a rainbow in the blue sky,
We dream that these are symbols from the outside.

Delight takes us into a sky-high flight,
Perhaps the answer to a miracle awaits there.
The rainbow is shining for us, fresh and good,
From bright colors eyes glow with happiness.

February 17, 2013 at 15:39:17| Categories: Nature , Photo , Other

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The answer is known: it is a multi-colored arc-shaped stripe that sometimes appears against the sky. A rainbow is an optical, atmospheric and weather phenomenon at the same time. It occurs when the air is saturated with tiny drops of water and light passes through them.

This happens after or during rain, fog, or in clear weather near a seething river, fountain, or sprinkler.

Why is the rainbow colored?

A rainbow is made up of rays of light. Where do their colors come from? We see the light as white. In fact, sunlight is made up of particles that vibrate at different frequencies. Our brain (thanks to our eyes) distinguishes it like colors. For example, we perceive rays with a high vibration frequency as red, and those with a low vibration frequency as violet. In the general flow, rays of different frequencies are mixed, and the light appears white.

When it passes through drops of water hanging in the air, it changes direction - it is refracted. Moreover, its different rays are refracted at different angles: red ones at a small angle, and, say, violet ones at a large angle. And at the exit from the droplets, the “white” light breaks up into a spectrum - rays with different colors. We see them as a rainbow.

A similar picture is obtained when a film of gasoline on a puddle or a soap bubble shimmers in different colors.

Why is a rainbow not always visible after rain?

For a visible rainbow to appear, the flow of light must be strong enough. You won't see a rainbow in cloudy weather.

In this case, the light should be in front of the eyes, and not behind the head. Usually some people see a rainbow, while others - at the same time as the first - do not see it. Why? If the sun is with your back, then you will see the light before it passes through the drops and begins to play in the spectrum.

When the sun is too high, its rays do not reach the eyes after refraction. The higher the sun, the smaller the arc of the rainbow. Therefore, a rainbow is not visible at noon, but is more often observed in the morning or in the evening.

But when you go up (for example, up the stairs), more and more light rays enter your eyes, and the rainbow grows. And the passengers of a flying airliner see through the windows not a rainbow arc, but a full circle!

How many colors are there in a rainbow?

No need to smile - the question is not as stupid as it seems.

Of course, we are used to the fact that there are seven colors, but this is a tribute to tradition. It comes from Isaac Newton. In experiments, he showed where the spectrum comes from. The great scientist counted five colors in the rainbow - red, yellow, green, blue and violet. However, he didn’t really like the figure.

Seven was considered a magical number (seven days of the week, seven wonders of the world, seventh heaven, seven deadly sins, etc.). “Taking a closer look” at the rainbow, Newton added two shades to the spectrum - orange and indigo (blue-violet), and there were seven colors.

But the ancient Russians were sure that there were only four colors in it - red, blue, green and crimson. The Japanese see the rainbow as six colors - they consider green to be a variety of blue. In short, among different nations the number of rainbow colors ranges from nine to two (light and dark).

There is no point in asking how many there really are - the colors of the spectrum imperceptibly transform into each other and it can be conditionally divided into as many bands as you like.

How to remember the order of colors in a rainbow?

Well, it's quite easy. We remember them by the first letters of the words in a simple phrase: “Every hunter wants to know where the pheasant sits”(red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). There are also modern version: “Every designer wants to know where to download Photoshop.”

The British have a shorter phrase about “pheasant”: Run off you girls – boys in view(“Run, girls – the boys have appeared”).

There is a more serious option: Richard of York gave battle in vain(“Richard of York fought in vain”). Pay attention to the set of colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet - the British kept “indigo”! What can you do, in their language blue and blue colors are designated the same.

How to get a rainbow at home?

You will not be able to see a full-fledged rainbow from floor to ceiling. But still…

1. Take a CD, place it in sunlight and change the angle. So it is not difficult to get bright rainbow spots, stripes or a circle along its edge on the disk.

2. On a sunny day, place a bowl of water on a windowsill or window table. Place a mirror at the bottom. Taking it in your hand, move it and the mirror so that a stream of rays reflected by the mirror hits the paper. The light from it, passing through a layer of water, will decompose into a spectrum. A piece of the rainbow will appear on the paper.

We have all seen a multi-colored arc appear in the sky. But what is a rainbow? How is this formed? miraculous phenomenon? The mystery of the nature of the rainbow has always fascinated humanity, and people tried to find an explanation for what was happening with the help of legends and myths. Today we will talk exactly about this. What is a rainbow and how is it formed?

Myths

Everyone knows that ancient people were inclined to deify and mystify most natural phenomena, be it thunder and lightning or an earthquake. They didn't ignore the rainbow either. What do we know from our ancestors? What is a rainbow and how is it made?

The ancient Vikings believed that the rainbow was the Bifrost Bridge, connecting the land of the people of Mitgard and the gods (Asgard).
Indians believed that the rainbow was a bow belonging to the thunder god Indra.
The Greeks did not go far from their contemporaries and also considered the rainbow to be the dear messenger of the gods Iris.
The Armenians decided that this was not a natural phenomenon, but the belt of the Sun God (but without making a decision, they changed the “specialty” of God and “forced” him to be responsible for art and science).
The Australians went further and animated the rainbow, making it the patron serpent of water.
According to African myths, where the rainbow touches the ground, treasure can be found.
It's interesting what Africans and Irish have in common, because their Leprechaun also hides a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

We could list for a long time the myths and legends of peoples from all over the world, and we would find something interesting for everyone. But what is a rainbow really?

Story

The first conscious and close to reality conclusions on the atmospheric phenomenon we are considering were given by Aristotle. It was just a guess, but he became the first person to take the rainbow from mythology to the real world. Aristotle hypothesized that a rainbow is not an object or substance, or even a real object, but simply a visual effect, an image, akin to a mirage in the desert.

However, the first Scientific research and the justification was carried out by the Arab astronomer Qutb ad-Din al-Shirazi. At the same time, similar studies were carried out by German researchers.

In 1611, the first physical theory of the rainbow was created. Mark Antony de Dominis, based on observations and experiments, came to the conclusion that rainbows are formed due to the refraction of light in drops of water contained in the atmosphere during rainy weather. To be more precise, he described the complete picture of the formation of a rainbow due to the double refraction of light at the entrance and exit from a drop of water.

Physics

So what is a rainbow, the definition of which was given by Aristotle? How is it formed? Probably everyone has heard about the existence of infrared and ultraviolet radiation? This is the “light” that comes from any material objects in different measurement ranges.

So, sunlight consists of rays with different wavelengths and includes all types of radiation from “warm” red to “cold” violet. When light passes through drops of water, it splits into rays of different wavelengths (and different colors), and this happens twice; when it hits the water, the ray splits and deviates slightly from its trajectory, and when it comes out, it deviates even more, as a result of which a rainbow can be seen with the naked eye.

For children

Of course, anyone who graduated from school with at least a C grade will tell you about the rainbow. But what if a child comes up to a parent and asks: “Mom, what is a rainbow? Where does it come from?” The easiest way to explain it is this: “These are the sun’s rays, passing through the rain, shimmering.” IN younger age children do not need to know the physical background of the phenomenon.

The well-known colors of the rainbow have a strict order and always the same sequence. As we have already found out, this is the result of physical processes. However, for some reason, many adults (parents, kindergarten teachers) demand that children know correct order arrangement of colors in the rainbow. For more quick memorization expressions were invented in which the first letters of words symbolize a certain color. Here are the most famous forms:

As you can see, you can track the correct order of colors by the first letter (red-orange-yellow-green-cyan-blue-violet). By the way, Isaac Newton did not distinguish blue and indigo, but blue and indigo, respectively. Why the color names were changed remains a mystery. In general, is it really so important to know what a rainbow is in order to admire it?

RESEARCH WORK

Two people standing next to each other see their own rainbow! Because at every moment a rainbow is formed by the refraction of the sun's rays in more and more drops. Raindrops are falling. The place of the fallen drop is taken by another and manages to send its colored rays into the rainbow, followed by the next one and so on.

Prepared by: Yulia Polozova, Anastasia Stezhkina, Elena Khimina

Scientific supervisor: Olga Ivanovna Zaporozhtseva (physics teacher)

S. Losevo 2015

CONTENT

1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………………….

2.What is a rainbow, history of research……………………………………………………………….

3. Rainbow in mythology and religion ………………………………………………………………………………………….

4.History of the study………………………………………………………………………………..

5.Physics of the rainbow…………………………………………………………………………………………

5.1.Where does a rainbow come from? Observation conditions……………………………………………………….

5.2.Why does a rainbow have the shape of an arc………………………………………………………..

5.3.Color of the rainbow and secondary rainbow………………………………………………………………

5.4.The cause of the rainbow is refraction and dispersion of light……………………………………………..

5.4.1.Newton’s experiments………………………………………………………………………………….

5.4.2. “Newton” in a drop………………………………………………………………………………………..

5.4.3. Scheme of rainbow formation ………………………………………………………………………………………

6.Unusual rainbows………………………………………………………………………………….

7.Rainbow and associated terms…………………………………………………………………………………

1. INTRODUCTION

Once, being in nature, we observed a rather beautiful phenomenon - a rainbow. The beauty of this phenomenon simply fascinated us. We came up with quite a few surveys, which we later formulated in our project.

Project goals:

Understand how a rainbow is formed.

Why does it always form at the same angle?

Why does a rainbow have an arc shape?

Rainbow: main and secondary. What is the difference?

Why is the name of Isaac Newton associated with the rainbow in the scientific world?

And so our research began.

2. WHAT IS A RAINBOW

A rainbow is not an object at all, but an optical phenomenon. This phenomenon occurs due to the refraction of light rays in drops of water, and all this occurs exclusively during rain. That is, a rainbow is not an object at all, but just a play of light. But what a beautiful game, I must say!

In fact, the arc familiar to the human eye is only part of a multi-colored circle. This natural phenomenon can only be seen in its entirety from an airplane, and even then only with a sufficient degree of observation.

The first studies of the shape of the rainbow were carried out by the French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes back in the 17th century. To do this, the scientist used a glass ball filled with water, which made it possible to imagine how a sunbeam is reflected in a raindrop, refracting and thereby becoming visible.

To remember the sequence of colors in the rainbow (or spectrum) there are special simple phrases - the first letters in them correspond to the first letters of the names of colors:

TO akABOUT onceAND and to -Z lanternG tinWITH brokeF onar.

TO everyABOUT hunterAND wantsZ natG deWITH goesF azan

Remember them - and you can easily draw a rainbow at any time!

The first person to explain the nature of the rainbow wasAristotle . He determined that "a rainbow is an optical phenomenon, not a material object."

An elementary explanation of the phenomenon of the rainbow was given back in 1611 by A. de Dominie in his work “De Radiis Visus et Lucis”, then developed by Descartes (“Les météores”, 1637) and fully developed by Newton in his “Optics” (1750) .

The rainbow from one drop is weak, and in nature it is impossible to see it separately, since there are many drops in the curtain of rain. The rainbow that we see in the sky is formed by myriads of drops. Each drop creates a series of nested colored funnels (or cones). But from an individual drop only one colored ray hits the rainbow. The observer's eye is the common point at which the colored rays from many drops intersect. For example, all red rays coming out of different drops, but at the same angle and entering the observer's eye, form a red arc of the rainbow. All orange and other colored rays also form arcs. That's why the rainbow is round.

3. RAINBOW IN MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION

People have long wondered about the nature of this most beautiful natural phenomenon. Humanity has associated the rainbow with many beliefs and legends. IN ancient greek mythology For example, a rainbow is the road between heaven and earth, along which the messenger between the world of the gods and the world of people, Iris, walked. In China, it was believed that the rainbow was a heavenly dragon, the union of Heaven and Earth. In Slavic myths and legends, the rainbow was considered a magical heavenly bridge from heaven to earth, a road along which angels descend from heaven to collect water from rivers. They pour this water into the clouds and from there it falls as life-giving rain.

Superstitious people believed that rainbows were a bad sign. They believed that the souls of the dead passed to the other world along a rainbow, and if a rainbow appeared, it meant someone’s imminent death.

Of course, since ancient times, people have tried to explain the rainbow. In Africa, for example, they believed that the rainbow was a huge snake that periodically crawled out of oblivion to carry out its dark deeds. However, intelligible explanations regarding this optical miracle could only be given towards the end of the seventeenth century. Then the famous Rene Descartes lived little by little. It was he who was first able to simulate the refraction of rays in a water drop. In his studies, Descartes used a glass ball filled with water. However, he could not fully explain the secret of the rainbow. But Newton, who replaced this very ball with a prism, managed to decompose a ray of light into a spectrum.

SUMMARY:

The rainbow is a bridge connecting (the world of people) and (the world of gods).

In ancient Indian - bow, god of thunder and lightning.

B is the road, messenger between the worlds of gods and people.

According to legends, the rainbow, like a snake, drinks water from lakes, rivers and seas, which then rains.

Hides a pot of gold in the place where the rainbow touched the ground.

According to legend, if you walk through a rainbow, you can change your gender.

The rainbow appeared later as a symbol of forgiveness for humanity, and is a symbol of the union (in Hebrew-Brit) of God and humanity (in the person of Noah) that there will never be a flood again. (Chapter Bereishit)

4. HISTORY OF RAINBOW RESEARCH

The Persian astronomer (1236-1311), and possibly his student (1260-1320), was apparently the first to give a fairly accurate explanation of the phenomenon.

The general physical picture of the rainbow was described in the book “De radiis visus et lucis in vitris perspectivis et iride”. Based on experimental observations, he came to the conclusion that a rainbow is produced as a result of reflection from the inner surface of a raindrop and double refraction - at the entrance to the drop and at the exit from it.

He gave a more complete explanation of the rainbow in the year in his work “Meteora” in the chapter “On the Rainbow”.

Although the multicolor spectrum of the rainbow is continuous, there are 7 colors in it. It is believed that the number 7 was chosen first, for which the number had a special meaning (for, or reasons). Moreover, initially he distinguished only five colors - red, yellow, green, blue and violet, which he wrote about in his “Optics”. But subsequently, trying to create a correspondence between the number of colors in the spectrum and the number of fundamental tones of the musical scale, Newton added to the five listed There are two more colors in the spectrum.

5. PHYSICS OF RAINBOW

5.1. Where does a rainbow come from? Observation conditions

Rainbows can only be seen before or after rain. And only if, simultaneously with the rain, the sun breaks through the clouds, when the sun illuminates the veil of falling rain and the observer is between the sun and the rain. What happens? The sun's rays pass through raindrops. And each droplet works like a prism. That is, it decomposes the white light of the Sun into its components - rays of red, orange, yellow, green, deep, blue and violet. Moreover, droplets deflect light of different colors in different ways, as a result of which white light decomposes into a multi-colored stripe, which is calledspectrum .

You can only see a rainbow if you are strictly between the sun (it should be behind you) and the rain (it should be in front of you). Otherwise you won't see the rainbow!

Sometimes, very rarely, a rainbow is observed under the same conditions when a rain cloud is illuminated by the moon. The same phenomenon of a rainbow is sometimes noticed when the sun illuminates water dust floating in the air near a fountain or waterfall. When the sun is covered with light clouds, the first rainbow sometimes seems completely uncolored and appears in the form of a whitish arc, lighter than the background of the sky; such a rainbow is called white.

Observations of the phenomenon of a rainbow have shown that its arcs represent regular parts of circles, the center of which always lies on a line passing through the observer’s head and the sun; because in this way the center of the rainbow is high standing sun lies below the horizon, the observer sees only a small part of the arc; At sunset and sunrise, when the sun is on the horizon, the rainbow appears as a semi-arc of a circle. From the top of very high mountains, from hot air balloon You can also see a rainbow in the form of most of the arc of a circle, since under these conditions the center of the rainbow is located above the visible horizon.

CONCLUSION: A rainbow appears only when suitable conditions are created for it. The sunshine should be shining at your back, and the raindrops should fall somewhere ahead. (Since bright sunlight is needed to form a rainbow, this means that the rain has already moved on or has completely passed by, and you are facing it.)

5.2. Why does a rainbow have an arc shape?

Why is the rainbow semicircular? People have been asking this question for a long time. In some African myths, a rainbow is a snake that envelops the Earth in a ring. But now we know that a rainbow is an optical phenomenon - the result of the refraction of light rays in water droplets during rain. But why do we see a rainbow in the form of an arc, and not, for example, in the form of a vertical stripe of color?

Here the law of optical refraction comes into force, in which a ray, passing through a raindrop located in a certain position in space, undergoes 42-fold refraction and becomes visible to the human eye precisely in the shape of a circle. This is exactly the part of this circle that you are used to observing.

The shape of a rainbow is determined by the shape of the water droplets in which sunlight is refracted. And water droplets are more or less spherical (round). Passing through the drop and being refracted in it, a beam of white sunlight is transformed into a series of colored funnels, inserted one into the other, facing the observer. The outer funnel is red, orange, yellow are inserted into it, then green, etc., ending with the inner violet. Thus, each individual drop forms a whole rainbow.

Of course, a rainbow from one drop is weak, and in nature it is impossible to see it separately, since there are many drops in the curtain of rain. The rainbow that we see in the sky is formed by myriads of drops. Each drop creates a series of nested colored funnels (or cones). But from an individual drop only one colored ray hits the rainbow. The observer's eye is the common point at which the colored rays from many drops intersect. For example, all red rays coming out of different drops, but at the same angle and entering the observer's eye, form a red arc of the rainbow. All orange and other colored rays also form arcs. That's why the rainbow is round.

The rainbow is a huge curved spectrum. To an observer on earth, a rainbow usually looks like an arc - part of a circle, and the higher the observer is, the fuller the rainbow. From a mountain or an airplane you can see the full circle!

It is interesting to note that two people standing next to each other and observing a rainbow each see it differently! All this is due to the fact that at each individual moment of viewing, a rainbow is constantly formed in new drops of water. That is, one drop falls, and another appears in its place. Also, the type and color of the rainbow depends on the size of the water droplets. The larger the raindrops, the brighter the rainbow will be. The most saturated color in the rainbow is red. If the droplets are small, the rainbow will be wider with a pronounced orange color at the edge. It must be said that we perceive the longest wave of light as red, and the shortest as violet. This applies not only to cases of observing a rainbow, but to everything in general. That is, you can now intelligently comment on the condition, size and color of the rainbow, as well as all other objects visible to the human eye.

Two people standing next to each other see their own rainbow! Because at every moment a rainbow is formed by the refraction of the sun's rays in more and more drops. Raindrops are falling. The place of the fallen drop is taken by another and manages to send its colored rays into the rainbow, followed by the next one and so on.

The appearance of the rainbow also depends on the shape of the drops. When falling in the air, large drops flatten and lose their sphericity. The stronger the flattening of the drops, the smaller the radius of the rainbow they form.

There is a group of optical phenomena called halo. They are caused by the refraction of light rays by tiny ice crystals in cirrus clouds and fogs. Most often, halos form around the Sun or Moon. Here is an example of such a phenomenon - a spherical rainbow around the Sun:

In fact, a rainbow is not a semicircle, but a circle. We just don’t see it in full, because the center of the rainbow’s circle lies on the same straight line with our eyes. For example, from an airplane you can see a full, round rainbow, although this happens extremely rarely, because on airplanes they usually look at their beautiful neighbors, or eat hamburgers while playing AngryBirds. So why is a rainbow shaped like a semicircle? This is because the raindrops that form a rainbow are clumps of water with a rounded surface. The light coming out of this very drop reflects its surface. That's the whole secret.

CONCLUSION: The appearance of the rainbow also depends on the shape of the drops. When falling in the air, large drops flatten and lose their sphericity. The stronger the flattening of the drops, the smaller the radius of the rainbow they form. The arc of a rainbow is just a segment of the circle of light, in the center of the viewing sector of which is the observer, that is, you. And the higher you stand, the fuller the rainbow will be

The appearance of the rainbow - the width of the arcs, the presence, location and brightness of individual color tones, the position of additional arcs - very much depend on the size of the raindrops. The larger the raindrops, the narrower and brighter the rainbow turns out. Large drops are characterized by the presence of a rich red color in the main rainbow. Numerous additional arcs also have bright colors and are directly adjacent to the main rainbows, without gaps. The smaller the droplets, the wider and fainter the rainbow becomes, with an orange or yellow edge. The additional arcs are further apart from each other and from the main rainbows. Thus, by the appearance of the rainbow one can approximately estimate the size of the raindrops that formed this rainbow.

5.3. Rainbow coloring and secondary rainbow

The color of the rainbow ring is determined by the refraction of sunlight in spherical raindrops, their reflection from the surface of the drops, as well as diffraction (from the Latin diffractus - broken) and interference (from the Latin inter - mutually and ferio - hitting) reflected rays of different wavelengths.

Sometimes you can see another, less bright rainbow around the first one. This is a secondary rainbow, in which the light is reflected twice in the drop. In a secondary rainbow, the order of colors is “inverted” - purple is on the outside and red is on the inside:

The inner, most often visible arc is colored red on the outer edge and violet on the inner edge; Between them, in the usual order of the solar spectrum, lie the colors (red), orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. The second, less frequently observed arc lies above the first, is usually more weakly colored, and the order of the colors in it is reversed. The part of the sky inside the first arc usually seems very light, the part of the sky above the second arc seems less light, and the annular space between the arcs seems dark. Sometimes, in addition to these two main elements of the rainbow, additional arcs are observed, representing weak colored blurry stripes bordering the upper part of the inner edge of the first rainbow and, less often, the upper part of the outer edge of the second rainbow

Sometimes you can see another, less bright rainbow around the first one. This is a secondary rainbow, in which the light is reflected twice in the drop. In the secondary rainbow, the order of colors is “inverted” - the outside is , and the inside is red. The angular radius of the secondary rainbow is 50-53°. The sky between two rainbows usually has a noticeably darker hue.

In the mountains and other places where it is very fresh air, a third rainbow can be observed (angular radius of about 60°).

The blurriness and blurriness of the colors of the rainbow is explained by the fact that the source of illumination is not a point, but an entire surface - the sun, and that individual sharper rainbows formed by individual points of the sun are superimposed on each other. If the sun shines through a veil of thin clouds, then the luminous source is the cloud surrounding the sun for 2 -3 ° and the individual color stripes overlap each other so much that the eye no longer distinguishes colors, but sees only a colorless light arc -white rainbow.

Since raindrops increase in size as they approach the ground, additional rainbows can be clearly visible only when light is refracted and reflected in high layers of the rain cover, that is, at a low altitude of the sun and only at the upper parts of the first and second rainbow. A complete theory of the white rainbow was given by Pörtner in 1897. The question has often been raised as to whether different observers see the same rainbow and whether a rainbow seen in the quiet mirror of a large reservoir of water is a reflection of a directly observed rainbow.

CONCLUSION: A rainbow occurs when the sun experiences water droplets slowly falling into. These droplets are different, as a result of which the light is decomposed into. It seems to us that a multi-colored glow emanates from space along concentric () lines. In this case, the source of bright light is always behind the observer. Later it was measured that it deviates by 137 30 minutes, and by 139°20’)

5.4.The cause of the rainbow is refraction and dispersion of light

Quite simply: Simply put, the appearance of a rainbow can be deduced into the following formula: light passing through raindrops is refracted. And it is refracted because water has a higher density than air. White color, as you know, consists of seven primary colors. It is quite clear that all colors have different wavelengths. And this is where the whole secret lies. When a ray of sunlight passes through a drop of water, it refracts each wave differently.

And now more details.

5.4.1. NEWTON'S EXPERIMENTS

Newton, while improving optical instruments, noticed that the image was colored rainbow around the edges. He was interested in this phenomenon. He began to explore it in more detail. Ordinary white light was passed through the prism, and on the screen a spectrum similar to the colors of the rainbow could be observed. At first Newton thought that it was the prism that colored White color. As a result of numerous experiments, it was possible to find out that the prism does not color, but separates the white color into a spectrum.

CONCLUSION: rays of different colors exit the prism at different angles.

5.4.2. “NEWTON” IN DROPS

When passing through raindrops, light is refracted (bent to the side) because water has a higher density than air. It is known that white color consists of seven primary colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. These colors have different wavelengths, and the drop refracts each wave to a different degree when a ray of sunlight passes through it. Thus, waves of different lengths and, therefore, colors come out of the drop in slightly different directions. What was at first a single beam of rays is now scattered into its own natural colors, each traveling its own path.

Colored rays, hitting the inner wall of the drop and bending even more, can even exit through the same side that they entered. And as a result, you see how the rainbow scattered its colors across the sky in an arc.

Each drop reflects all colors. But from your fixed position on the earth, you only perceive certain colors from certain drops. The drops reflect the colors red and orange most clearly, so they reach your eyes from the very top drops. Blue and violet are reflected less well, so you see them from drops located slightly lower. Yellow and green reflect the drops that are in the middle. Put all the colors together and you get a rainbow.

5.4.3. RAINBOW FORMATION SCHEME

1) spherical,

2) internal,

3) primary rainbow,

4) ,

5) secondary rainbow,

6) incoming light beam,

7) the course of rays during the formation of the primary rainbow,

8) the course of rays during the formation of a secondary rainbow,

9) observer, 10-12) area of rainbow formation.

Most often observedprimary rainbow , in which light undergoes one internal reflection. The path of the rays is shown in the figure at the top right. In the primary rainbow it is located outside the arc, its angular angle is 40-42°.

EXPLANATION FROM THE POINT OF PHYSICS

Observations of the rainbow have shown that the angle formed by two lines mentally drawn from the observer’s eyes to the center of the rainbow arc and to its circumference, or the angular radius of the rainbow, is an approximately constant value and equal to about 41° for the first rainbow, and 52° for the second. An elementary explanation of the phenomenon of the rainbow was given back in 1611 by A. de Dominie in his work “De Radiis Visus et Lucis”, then developed by Descartes (“Les météores”, 1637) and fully developed by Newton in his “Optics” (1750) . According to this explanation, the phenomenon of a rainbow occurs due to the refraction and total internal reflection (see Dioptrics) of the sun's rays in raindrops. If a ray SA falls on a spherical drop of liquid, then it (Fig. 1), having undergone refraction in the direction AB, can be reflected from the rear surface of the drop in the direction BC and exit, refracted again, in the direction CD.

The beam, otherwise falling on the drop, can, however, at point C (Fig. 2) be reflected a second time along CD and exit, refracted, in the direction DE.

If not one ray falls on a drop, but a whole bunch of parallel rays, then, as is proven in optics, all the rays that have undergone one internal reflection in a drop of water will come out of the drop in the form of a diverging cone of rays (Fig. 3), the axis of which is located along the direction of the incident rays. In reality, the beam of rays emerging from the drop does not represent a regular cone, and even all its constituent rays do not intersect at one point, only for simplicity in the following drawings these beams are taken to be regular cones with their apex in the center of the drop

The angle of the cone opening depends on the refractive index (see Dioptrics) of the liquid, and since the refractive index for rays of different colors (different wavelengths) that make up a white solar ray is not the same, then the angle of the cone opening will be different for rays of different colors, namely for there will be fewer purple ones than for red ones. As a result, the cone will be bordered by a colored rainbow edge, red on the outside, purple on the inside, and, if the drop is water, then half of the corner hole of the coneSOR for red it will be about 42°, for purple (SOV ) 40.5°. A study of the distribution of light inside the cone shows that almost all the light is concentrated in this colored border of the cone and is extremely weak in its central parts; Thus, we can only consider the bright colored shell of the cone, since all its internal rays are too weak to be perceived by vision.

A similar study of rays reflected twice in a drop of water will show us that they will come out with the same conical irisV"R" (Fig. 3), but red from the inner edge, purple from the outer, and for a water drop half of the angular hole of the second cone will be equal to 50° for red (SOR" ) and 54° for the purple edge (SOV ) .

Let us now imagine that an observer whose eye is at the pointABOUT (Fig. 4), looks at a row of vertical raindropsA, B , C, D, E... , illuminated by parallel sun rays moving in the directionSA, SB, SC etc.; let all these drops be located in a plane passing through the eye of the observer and the sun; each such drop will, according to the previous one, emit two conical light shells, the common axis of which will be the sun ray incident on the drop.

Let the dropIN located so that one of the rays forming the inner shell of the first (inner) cone will, when continued, pass through the eye of the observer; then the observer will see inIN purple dot. Somewhat higher than a dropIN a drop C will be located such that a ray coming from the outer surface of the shell of the first cone will enter the eye and give it the impression of a red dot inWITH ; drops in betweenIN AndWITH, will give the impression of blue, green, yellow and orange dots in the eye. In total, the eye will see in this plane a vertical rainbow line with a purple end at the bottom and a red end at the top; if we pass throughABOUT and the sun lineSO, then the angle formed by it with the lineOB , will be equal to the half-hole of the first cone for violet rays, i.e. 40.5°, and the angleCBS will be equal to the half-hole of the first cone for red rays, i.e. 42°. If you turn the cornerKOV aroundOK, ThatOB will describe a conical surface and each drop lying on the circle of intersection of this surface with the rain cover will give the impression of a light purple point, and all the points together will give a purple arc of a circle with a center atTO ; in the same way, red and intermediate arcs are formed, and in total the eye will receive the impression of a light rainbow arc, violet inside, red outside -first rainbow.

Applying the same reasoning to the second outer light conical shell emitted by drops and formed by solar rays reflected twice in a drop, we obtain a widersecond concentricrainbow with angleCFU, equal for the inner red edge - 50°, and for the outer purple edge - 54°. Due to the double reflection of light in the drops that produce this second rainbow, it will be significantly less bright than the first. DropsD, lying betweenWITH AndE, do not emit light at all into the eye, and therefore the space between two rainbows will appear dark; from the drops lying belowIN and higherE, white rays emanating from the central parts of the cones and therefore very weak will enter the eye; this explains why the space under the first and above the second rainbow appears dimly lit to us.

CONCLUSION:The elementary theory of the rainbow obviously indicates that different observers see rainbows formed by different raindrops, that is, different rainbows, and that the apparent reflection of a rainbow is the rainbow that would be seen by an observer placed under a reflecting surface at such a distance from it downwards, how he is above her. Observed in rare cases, especially at sea, intersecting eccentric rainbows are explained by the reflection of light from the water surface behind the observer and, thus, the appearance of two light sources (the sun and its reflection), each giving its own rainbow.- does not perceive). That's why a lunar rainbow looks whitish; but the brighter the light, the more “colorful” the rainbow will be, because In humans, bright light turns on the perception of color receptors -.

The center of the circle that a rainbow describes always lies on a straight line passing through (the Moon) and the observer’s eye, that is, it is impossible to see the sun and a rainbow at the same time without using mirrors. For an observer on the ground, it usually looks like part of a circle; the higher the point of view, the fuller the rainbow - from a mountain or an airplane you can see the whole .

A simple rainbow-arc is usually observed, but under certain circumstances you can see a double rainbow, and from an airplane - an inverted or even ring rainbow.

Ring Rainbow July 10, 2005

rainbow in the forest rainbow from an airplane

rainbow in the clouds rainbow over the sea

We are used to seeing a rainbow as an arc. In fact, this arc is only part of a multi-colored circle. This natural phenomenon can only be observed at high altitudes, for example, from an airplane.

The rainbow also appears in many folk signs related to weather forecasting. For example, a rainbow that is tall and steep foreshadows good weather, and low and flat - bad.

8. LITERATURE USED