• Question: why are rainbows red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet

    Asked by ledw to Christina, Colin, Jess, Samaneh, Steve on 19 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by 10wintoyw.
    • Photo: Jess Bean

      Jess Bean answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      Normal light as we know it is is called ‘white’ light because it contains all the colours of light that we can see. Sunlight is white but actually contains all the colours seen in rainbows! When the waves of light hit water droplets (like rain) they are ‘refracted’ which means the waves are bent and spread out, forming the stripes seen in rainbows. There are actually other parts of white light that are bent in rainbows (as well as colours) which our eyes cannot pick up so we dont see them.

    • Photo: Christina Pagel

      Christina Pagel answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Are you going to do GCSE or A-level physics? if so, you’ll learn all about that!! the colours you see in a rainbow (or the ones you get from shining light through a prism) are different wavelengths of light (you can think of light like a wave with crests and dips and a wavelength is the distance between crests). Blue has a shorter wavelength that red (ie its crests are closer together).

      There are some really cool experiments done showing how our brains have learned to interpet colours and mixtures of colours! Look at this – it’s brilliant : http://www.swamij.com/illusion-purple-dots.htm

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