Rainbows: Beauty and Brains

While reading through the text book, I found a brief paragraph on rainbows on page 352. Although most of us enjoy looking at them, we sometimes fail to realize the complex science involved in creating a rainbow. 

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_does_a_rainbow_appear_bent_or_arched_in_a_semicircle_in_the_sky

http://eo.ucar.edu/rainbows/

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2003-04/why-are-rainbows-shaped-arch

The suns light is made up of the several colors of the rainbow; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. When all these colors are combined they look white, like the light we always see. Each color has a different wave length which causes them to separate when light comes in contact with a prism.

After it rains, the air is filled with water droplets in the air. These droplets act as tiny prisms, breaking the sunlight into a spectrum. When the lights hits the water, each color goes in a different direction causing each one to be visible in the order of a rainbow

The sun also has to be at the right angle. The sun is always behind you when you face a rainbow. The center of the circular arc of the rainbow is in the direction opposite to that of the sun. And the rain is in the direction of the rainbow.

Rays of a rainbow bend twice. As they enter the drops, the rays are bent, then they reflect off the back of the drops and bend again as they exit out the front of the drops.The rainbow is circular because when a raindrop bends light, the light exits the raindrop at a 40-42 degree angle away from the angle it entered the raindrop. Each color bends at a different angel causing them to separate.

Light can also enter a droplet, be reflected off the back of the droplet, only to be reflected of the front, and then off the back again before leaving. It is bent at each phase in this process, and a second rainbow can appear above the first one. In a double rainbow, the second rainbow will appear where it does because the light will be cumulatively bent some 50 to 53 degrees. So it will be bent farther from the first rainbow making it appear under it.

Rainbows don't have "ends" but are full circled, but we can't see this because the horizon of the earth is in the way. If the sun is very low in the sky, either just before sunset or just after sunrise, we can see a half circle. The higher the sun is in the sky, the less we see of the rainbow. 

HERES A GUY THAT REALLY APPRECIATES A DOUBLE RAINBOW!!

Lightning Frenzy

In 2007 my family and I lived in Florida. One of the things I remember most about Florida is the crazy lightning storms every night. I never knew why there was so much lightning in Florida, but not in New York. I decided to research it for my blog.

I started by looking in the textbook. The book doesn't mention anything about lightning, but it does have a chapter on electricity. It defines electricity as "a form of energy...a flow of electrons". Electrons are negatively charged particles that are found in the atoms of all elements. Each electron has a tiny negative charge of electricity. Light is another form of energy created by certain objects such as lightning. Light travels 186,000 miles/second. It travels so quickly that earthly distances appear to be instant, which is why lightning only flashes for a split second. I now have to find how both electricity and light are created in the sky.

 Lightning is electricity formed during a thunderstorm by the build up of large electrical fields in high anvil shaped cumulonimbus clouds. As  warm air rises, cold air moves in and meets the warm moist air which causes the warm air to rise rapidly forming large, dense, tall towers of  thunderstorm clouds. Lightning is produced when liquid and ice particles above the freezing level collide, and build up large electrical fields in the clouds. Once these electric fields become large enough, a giant "spark" occurs like static electricity, reducing the charge separation.  

Florida has all the right ingredients for lightning, especially in summer. It is a sub-tropic climate, meaning that the humidity is always very high (80-100% most of the time), so there is a lot of precipitation in the air. Also the air temperature gets very hot. Hot air rises, and mixed with the humidity, or water vapor levels in the atmosphere, clouds are formed. These clouds grow into thunderstorms

 http://www.myuniversalfacts.com/2006/03/what-causes-lightning.html


http://www.weatherquestions.com/What_causes_lightning.htm

So now I know why there is so much lightning in Florida. I figured it had something to do with the heat, but I never knew humidity played an effect. I did not know lightning was caused by liquid particles rubbing together. I never thought water could make electricity! That's kind of ironic.

This is a video of one storm in Florida. This is what I had to see almost every night!! Look, it's crazy!