What Are Rainbows?
Sunlight appears plain white in colour. However, appearances can be deceptive. The plain white light is actually a combination of numerous colourful shades ranging from violet to red. Yes, the rainbow is not a colourful strip painted across the sky. It is our own ordinary sunlight transformed by water vapour especially during monsoons. Water vapour helps to split white light into the multiple colours that are hidden inside. The transformation of white light into a rainbow can be explained by the science called Optics (a branch of physical science that deals with light and vision) and meteorology (the science of atmosphere and weather). When a beam of white light is shone through water, it bends as water impedes its speed. This phenomenon is called refraction. Each constituent colour of the white light travels at a different speed. Red travels faster and is least refracted, violet is most refracted. The result is that light gets split into its constituent colour spectrum. This is called
