Question

1. Name two phenomena involved in the formation of rainbow

Answer 1

Rainbow:

Rainbow formation reasons:

Dispersion of light:

1. A prism splits the ray of light into seven different colors. This splitting of light into many colors is called dispersion of light.
2. This shows us that the sunlight is constituted of several colors.
3. Sometimes in the rainbow, all the seven colors are not visible.

Total internal reflection:

1. It is the kind of phenomenon when a beam of light passing through a denser medium, is incident at the surface of a less dense medium.
2. In this case, the angle of incidence is always greater than the critical angle for both the medium, and the beam of light is reflected totally back into the denser medium.

Refraction of light:

1. Refraction of light is constituted by a small change in the speed of light at the interface of two optical different mediums.
2. An example of refraction is: A pencil immersed in a glass of water appears tilted at the interface of water and air.

Hence,

1. A rainbow is a natural spectrum appearing in the sky usually after a rain shower.
2. It occurs due to the dispersion of sunlight by tiny water droplets, present in the atmosphere.
3. A rainbow is always formed in a direction opposite to that of the Sun to facilitate easy dispersion of sunlight.
4. Rainbow is produced after the rain, by reflection, refraction, and light dispersion process in droplets of water.
5. A rainbow is always formed in a direction opposite to that of the Sun to facilitate easy dispersion of sunlight.
6. A Rainbow is an optical phenomenon that can be seen when atmospheric conditions, sunlight, and the position of the viewer match.

Thus, the Rainbow is formed mainly due to the reflection, refraction, and light dispersion process in droplets of water.