why do some people say that a rainbow has an indigo band while others say that is does not?
537209
It depends on how one perceives colour. Some cultures only distinguish two colours, e.g. whitish and blackish, cool colours and warm colours. Most physicist see everything in terms of red or blue. I mean how do you define an indigo band? Where does this band start and stop? How would you divide up the rainbow?\nThe main reason for indigo is symmetry. Green is in the middle and Europeans have traditionally seen three colours on the red side, so three are assigned on the blue side.
285200
if there is, it moves around when you do. If you try nd follow the rainbow till its end, you will never manage it, as much as you try. So there might be, but you'll never get it.
318480
Yes it is rainbow. Here is the Russian spelling of it: "радуга"
942352
A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a nearly continuous spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. It takes the form of a multicoloured arc, with red on the outside and violet on the inside. A double rainbow includes a second, fainter, arc with colors in the opposite order.\n\nEven though a rainbow spans a continuous spectrum of colours, traditionally the full sequence of colours is most commonly cited as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. It is commonly thought that indigo was included due to the different religious connotations of the numbers six and seven at the time of Isaac Newton's work on light, despite its lack of scientific significance and the poor ability of humans to distinguish colours in the blue portion of the visual spectrum.\n\nScientific explanation\n\nThe rainbow effect can be observed whenever there are water drops in the air and sunlight shining from behind the observer at a low altitude or angle. The most spectacular rainbow displays when half of the sky is still dark with draining clouds and the observer is at a spot with clear sky overhead. The rainbow effect is also commonly seen near waterfalls or fountains. Rainbow fringes can sometimes be seen at the edges of backlit clouds and as vertical bands in distant rain or virga. The effect can also be artificially created by dispersing water droplets into the air during a sunny day.\n\nIn a very few cases, a moonbow, or night-time rainbow, can be seen on strongly moonlit nights. As human visual perception for colour in low light is poor, moonbows are most often perceived to be white.\nRainbows may also appear in the spray of a water fountain\nEnlarge\nRainbows may also appear in the spray of a water fountain\n\nThe rainbow's appearance is caused by dispersion of sunlight as it is refracted by (approximately spherical) raindrops. The light is first refracted as it enters the surface of the raindrop, reflected off the back of the drop, and again refracted as it leaves the drop. The overall effect is that the incoming light is reflected back over a wide range of angles, with the most intense light at an angle of about 40°–42°. This angle is independent of the size of the drop, but does depend on its refractive index. As seawater has a higher refractive index than rain water, the radius of a 'rain'bow in a sea spray is smaller than a true rainbow. This is visible to the naked eye by a misalignment of these bows [1].\n\nSince the water is dispersive, the amount that the sunlight is bent depends upon the wavelength, and hence colour, of the light's constituent parts. Blue light is refracted at a greater angle than red light, but because the area of the back of the droplet has a focal point inside the droplet, the spectrum crosses itself, and therefore the red light appears higher in the sky, and forms the outer colour of the rainbow. Contrary to popular belief, the light at the back of the raindrop does not undergo total internal reflection; however, light that emerges from the back of the raindrop does not create a rainbow between the observer and the Sun. The spectra emitted from the back of the raindrop do not have a maximum of intensity, as the other visible rainbows do, and thus the colours blend together and do not form a rainbow.\n\nA rainbow does not actually exist at a location in the sky, but rather is an optical phenomenon whose apparent position depends on the observer's location. All raindrops refract and reflect the sunlight in the same way, but only the light from some raindrops reaches the observer's eye. These raindrops are perceived to constitute the rainbow by that observer. The position of a rainbow in the sky is always in the opposite direction of the Sun with respect to the observer, and the interior is always slightly brighter than the exterior. The bow is centred on the shadow of the obser
416298
A full moon can form a rainbow - usually called a "moonbow". It looks kind of grey though.
52478
When light is refracted off of droplets of water it enables you to see all the colors that make up white light (sunlight, even light from bulbs.) creating what people more commonly refer to as a rainbow. \n  Go outside on a sunny day and spray the waterhose if you have one. If you look very carefully, you can see that the rainbow you created is not just a semi-circle, but a full circle! The bottom half is harder to see, but it is there. The reason rainbows don't look like that when we see them outside is because we are too low to the ground to see the rest.
110830
Umm.. No. Rainbows are a result of atmospheric moisture and light, not a short Irish man who tricks kids into buying overpriced cereal.
105098
rainbow\n\n\n...c'mon
1036257
Double Rainbows are stunning!\n\nThe phenomenon is basically a main primary rainbow with a secondary rainbow that forms outside the primary bow. The secondary bow is weaker in brightness than the primary (it forms from a second reflection in raindrops, rather than from just one as with the primary bow), and its colors are reversed in order. In the primary bow, blue is on the inner edge with red on the outer. In the secondary bow, the red is on the inner edge and blue the outer. In between the two bows you will see a much darker region known as Alexander's dark band. The center of the rainbow is usually much brighter than the rest of the sky due to sunlight reflecting directly back from the droplets to the viewer...\n\n\nThere's a lot on this topic available from a Google search :)
448202
If you shine a white light through a prism, the light is refracted and you get a rainbow. Thats how you can see the different wavelengths in white light.
888300
what you actually saw was the two rainbows formed...\nyes there are two... as what you saw, the outside is fainter than the inside... and also, if there were no earth, the rainbow we see will be like a circle....
335678
It's an acronym that is used to remember the colors in the rainbow.\nRed\nOrange\nYellow\nGreen \nBlue\nIndigo\nViolet
17125
Theres -3- different meanings. \nThe first is a political party in Greece. \n\nThe second is a group sex event, widely associated with oral activities. \n\nThird. It is the title of a book about kids and group sex.\n\nAlternatively alot of people may be inclided to think this as a gay...event. While the rainbow has widely been a 'gay identifier' this is not the case. The name was generated from girls that would wear different colors of lipstick...hence the name rainbow.
379722
The rainbow effect can be observed whenever there are water drops in the air and sunlight shining from behind the observer at a low altitude or angle. The most spectacular rainbow displays when half of the sky is still dark with draining clouds and the observer is at a spot with clear sky overhead. The rainbow effect is also commonly seen near waterfalls or fountains. Rainbow fringes can sometimes be seen at the edges of backlit clouds and as vertical bands in distant rain or virga. The effect can also be artificially created by dispersing water droplets into the air during a sunny day.\nIn a very few cases, a moonbow, or night-time rainbow, can be seen on strongly moonlit nights. As human visual perception for colour in low light is poor, moonbows are perceived to be white.\nThe rainbow's appearance is caused by dispersion of sunlight as it is refracted by (approximately spherical) raindrops. The light is first refracted as it enters the surface of the raindrop, reflected off the back of the drop, and again refracted as it leaves the drop. The overall effect is that the incoming light is reflected back over a wide range of angles, with the most intense light at an angle of about 40°–42°, regardless of the size of the drop. Since the water of the raindrops is dispersive, the amount that the sunlight is bent depends upon the wavelength, and hence colour, of the light's constituent parts. Blue light is refracted at a greater angle than red light, but because the area of the back of the droplet has a focal point inside the droplet, the spectrum crosses itself, and therefore the red light appears higher in the sky, and forms the outer colour of the rainbow. Contrary to popular belief, the light at the back of the raindrop does not undergo total internal reflection; however, light that emerges from the back of the raindrop does not create a rainbow between the observer and the Sun. The spectra emitted from the back of the raindrop do not have a maximum of intensity, as the other visible rainbows do, and thus the colours blend together and do not form a rainbow.\n rainbow does not actually exist at a location in the sky, but rather is an optical phenomenon whose apparent position depends on the observer's location. All raindrops refract and reflect the sunlight in the same way, but only the light from some raindrops reaches the observer's eye. These raindrops are perceived to constitute the rainbow by that observer. The position of a rainbow in the sky is always in the opposite direction of the Sun with respect to the observer, and the interior is always slightly brighter than the exterior. The bow is centred on the shadow of the observer's head, or more exactly at the antisolar point (which is below the horizon during the daytime), appearing at an angle of approximately 40°–42° to the line between the observer's head and its shadow. As a result, if the Sun is higher than 42°, then the rainbow is below the horizon and cannot be seen unless the observer is at the top of a mountain or a similar vantage point. Similarly, it is difficult to photograph the complete arc of a rainbow, which would require an angle of view of 84°. For a 35 mm camera, a lens with a focal length of 19 mm or less would be required, whilst most photographers are only likely to have a 28 mm wide-angle lens.\nFrom an aeroplane, one has the opportunity to see the whole circle of the rainbow, with the plane's shadow in the centre. This phenomenon can be confused with the glory, but a glory is usually much smaller, covering only 5°–20°, as opposed to over 80° for a full circle rainbow.
961441
Rainbows are always the same size.  The diameter of a rainbow is best expressed in degrees as it is not at a fixed distance away.  Rainbows can be thought of as occupying the surface of a thin cone with its pointy end at your eye, and the angle of the cone is fixed.  This angle depends only on the refractive index of water.\n\nYes - you can get one bigger than a semi-circle, but only if you get well above the earth's surface (perhaps in an aeroplane) so that the ground doesn't get in the way!
507580
A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a nearly continuous spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. It takes the form of a multicoloured arc, with red on the outside and violet on the inside. Even though a rainbow spans a continuous spectrum of colours, traditionally the full sequence of colours is most commonly cited as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. It is commonly thought that indigo was included due to the different religious connotations of the numbers six and seven at the time of Isaac Newton's work on light, despite its lack of scientific significance and the poor ability of humans to distinguish colours in the blue portion of the visual spectrum.\n\n\nThe rainbow effect can be observed whenever there are water drops in the air and sunlight shining from behind the observer at a low altitude or angle. The most spectacular rainbow displays when half of the sky is still dark with draining clouds and the observer is at a spot with clear sky overhead. The rainbow effect is also commonly seen near waterfalls or fountains. Rainbow fringes can sometimes be seen at the edges of backlit clouds and as vertical bands in distant rain or virga. The effect can also be artificially created by dispersing water droplets into the air during a sunny day.\n\nIn a very few cases, a moonbow, or night-time rainbow, can be seen on strongly moonlit nights. As human visual perception for colour in low light is poor, moonbows are perceived to be white.\n\nThe rainbow's appearance is caused by dispersion of sunlight as it is refracted by (approximately spherical) raindrops. The light is first refracted as it enters the surface of the raindrop, reflected off the back of the drop, and again refracted as it leaves the drop. The overall effect is that the incoming light is reflected back over a wide range of angles, with the most intense light at an angle of about 40°–42°, regardless of the size of the drop. Since the water of the raindrops is dispersive, the amount that the sunlight is bent depends upon the wavelength, and hence colour, of the light's constituent parts. Blue light is refracted at a greater angle than red light, but because the area of the back of the droplet has a focal point inside the droplet, the spectrum crosses itself, and therefore the red light appears higher in the sky, and forms the outer colour of the rainbow. Contrary to popular belief, the light at the back of the raindrop does not undergo total internal reflection; however, light that emerges from the back of the raindrop does not create a rainbow between the observer and the Sun. The spectra emitted from the back of the raindrop do not have a maximum of intensity, as the other visible rainbows do, and thus the colours blend together and do not form a rainbow.\n\nA rainbow does not actually exist at a location in the sky, but rather is an optical phenomenon whose apparent position depends on the observer's location. All raindrops refract and reflect the sunlight in the same way, but only the light from some raindrops reaches the observer's eye. These raindrops are perceived to constitute the rainbow by that observer. The position of a rainbow in the sky is always in the opposite direction of the Sun with respect to the observer, and the interior is always slightly brighter than the exterior. The bow is centred on the shadow of the observer's head, or more exactly at the antisolar point (which is below the horizon during the daytime), appearing at an angle of approximately 40°–42° to the line between the observer's head and its shadow. As a result, if the Sun is higher than 42°, then the rainbow is below the horizon and cannot be seen unless the observer is at the top of a mountain or a similar vantage point. Similarly, it is difficult to photograph the complete arc of a rainbow, which would require an angle of vie
222325
The rainbow is a prism that occurs when light travels through water or something that can bend the light to creat the colors that we call the rainbow.