I saw a beautiful rainbow over the river the other day. I stopped and stared at it. I realised that I dont understand what I am seeing when I observe a rainbow.
It would be good to see how deep an understanding we can get together here on the science forum, of rainbows.
Sometimes a rainbow can seem to be about 10/20 metres from one side to another, each colour in the spectrum is maybe 1 metre or more wide. Millions of water particals all appear the colour of the band they appear in.
It's not a case of each water partical refracting every part of the spectrum... it's a case of them all doing it collectively. How does this work? What exactly are we seeing?
Can anybody explain whats going on with rainbows in any detail?