Explain the formation of rainbow briefly?

When light travels from one medium to another, it bends. In other words, it changes direction and moves at different speeds in different mediums. This property of light is called “refraction”.
We also know that white light is made up of different colours. Different colors of light have different frequencies. Except in vacuum and air, they travel at different speeds in different mediums.
If you were to allow a beam of light to pass through a simple prism, it will bend when it enters the prism, when it leaves the prism it bends again. The different colours of the white light travel with different speeds inside the prism. The slanted surfaces of the prism makes the different colours emerge separately, thus in addition to bending light as a whole, a prism separates white light into its component colors. This splitting of light into its component colours is called dispersion, where prism is a dispersing element.
This is exactly what happens when the sun rays hit droplets of water. When the sunlight strikes a raindrop, the light is refracted (bent) because the light is moving from one medium(air) to another( water). Drops of rainwater can disperse light in the same way as a prism.. When the light comes out of the water droplet, the sun's rays (white light)have now been split into their component wavelengths (colors). In this way, each individual raindrop behaves just like a prism, dispersing white sunlight into its seven component colors and a rainbow is formed.
The rainbow we see is thus a result of many, many raindrops bending the sun's rays.
THAMPS UP PLEASE!!!!!!!!


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the sunlight refracts through d raindrops n form rainbow on d sky  whr sky acts as a screen

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Hi Manasa!

The dispersion of light is the principle underlying in the formation of the rainbow. A rainbow is formed when white light is dispersed naturally. The rain drops act as dispersers while the Sunlight fall on them. We see the spectrum (dispersed band of seven colours) as a streak of rainbow across the sky.

Nice answer @ Aneeta!! Keep writing!!

Cheers!
  • 53

hiiiii....

when coincidently sunlight and rainfall is there... the water droplets acts as prism and the due to multiple total internal reflection(tir) inside the the water droplet,,,, spliting up of white light takes place... into corresponding seven colours......

ONE MORE THING..... NOT IN UR SYLLABUS,,,, JUST A FACT////

two people can never see same rainbow at same time.......

if u understood,, than dont forget my thumbs up,,,

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