What causes Rainbow formation?

Answer 1

Have you noticed in a rainbow red is always the longest. In an art work the three primary colors are red,blue and yellow. The three primary colors of light are red, blue and GREEN. Red has the Longest wave length and the shortest energy that is why red is the longest. Violet has the shortest wave length but it has the most energy that is why it is darker. Everything else falls into place. Red is the longest followed by orange yellow green blue indago and the shortest it violet. So it's on the bottom.

Answer 2

Rainbows can be described as a distorted reflection of the Sun in water droplets in suspension in the atmosphere.

The reason why the different colors mixed in the incident Sun light are dispersed is that the light is reflected against the back of the drop, so that the light is refracted twice: one time when it enters the drop, a second time when it exits the drop.

Most introductory physics textbook correctly point out that dispersion of light is due to the color dependence of the index of diffraction, but fail to mention that, in this context, the direction of the reflected light also depends on the impact parameter. All colors are actually reflected inside, not on, a cone whose axis is parallel to the incoming light.

Because of the physics of reflection and refraction of light, and because of the geometry involved in the reflection in a sphere, there is a extremum in the variation of the total deflection angle as a function of the impact parameter. It is at this color-dependent angle that light intensity will build up and give rise to rainbows.

Answer 3

Light being bent by water in the atmosphere. Raindrops act like mini prisms and break the sunlight into the entire visible spectrum.Rain does this because water slows light down as it passes through it and lets all the different frequencies of light come through individually. Frequency determines color. It's bow shaped because you're actually only seeing half of the rainbow, a complete rainbow would be a circle (then I guess it would be called a raincircle? :)). Hope this helps.