• Question: How does a rainbow get its coulors

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      Asked by TRIKSHOTER 123 to Angus, Catherine, Jenni, Melissa, Waqar on 21 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by 264merf49, Abbie0308.
      • Photo: Angus Cook

        Angus Cook answered on 21 Jun 2016:

        A rainbow is created when white sunlight hits raindrops and is split up into different colours. All the different colours leave the raindrops at SLIGHTLY different angles, which is why they’re spread out and individually visible in the rainbow.

        You might have seen a similar effect when the sun hits a window at the right angle and puts a rainbow on the floor, or (if you’ve seen the experiment) when you split white light through a prism.

        You could do the reverse and shine lights which are all the colours of the rainbow together, and you’d see a white light. Reverse-bow?

      • Photo: Melissa Ladyman

        Melissa Ladyman answered on 21 Jun 2016:

        How many colours are there in a rainbow? Is it 5: red, yellow, green, blue and violet or are there hundreds of different colours as the strips bleed into one another? The rainbow song says there are 7 and includes orange and indigo because when Isaac Newton was studying prisms and how white light splits up he said there were seven colours. Now, Isaac Newton was an amazing scientist and mathematician, but I think he was fibbing about there being 7 colours in a rainbow!

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