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Introduction page 3

Chapter 1. Natural phenomenon - rainbow page 4

Chapter 2. Getting a rainbow at home page 7

Conclusion page 8

List of sources and literature page 9

Appendix No. 1 page 10

Appendix No. 2 page 11

Appendix No. 3 page 11

Appendix No. 4 page 12

Appendix No. 5 page 12

Appendix No. 6 page 13

Appendix No. 7 page 14

Appendix No. 8 p. 15

Appendix No. 9 page 15

Introduction

A multi-colored rocker hangs across the river

(Riddle, answer - rainbow)

Every person at least once in his life admired a wonderful natural phenomenon - a rainbow.

As a rule, rainbows appear after rain.

I have seen a rainbow many times, and its appearance always delighted me. In the summer, on one of the sunny days, it started to rain: warm, lightly drizzling. After it stopped, I was the first to see a rainbow in the sky.

I wanted to know what a rainbow is and how it appears.

Purpose of the study: determine what the connection is between rain, sun and the appearance of a rainbow, and whether it is possible to get a rainbow at home.

Object of study- natural phenomenon rainbow.

Subject of research- the origin of the rainbow.

Research objectives- find answers to the following questions:

How does a rainbow appear?

Do rainbows only appear in sunny weather or can they be seen at night?

Is it possible to get a rainbow at home?

Hypotheses (assumptions):

Suppose a rainbow appears only on a sunny day after rain.

Let's assume that it is impossible to see a rainbow in nature at night.

Suppose that a rainbow can be obtained by replacing the sun's rays with an artificial light source.

Basic methods: literature study, observation, experiment.

Natural phenomenon - rainbow

What is a rainbow? Why does such a colorful arc appear in the sky?

I found answers to these questions in children's encyclopedias.

On a sunny day, you can see a rainbow at any time - just take a hose and start watering the flowers in the garden. If you stand with your back to the sun, you will definitely see a rainbow that appears from the rays of the sun illuminating the splashes of water.

This is also how a real rainbow appears, only in this case the sun’s rays do not pass through small splashes of water, but through a curtain of rain that falls somewhere in the distance. A rainbow appears when we stand with our backs to the sun and it is raining in front of us.

But we see ordinary sunlight as white or colorless. Why, when passing through splashes of water, do the sun's rays form a rainbow?

It turns out that light is not white at all; in fact, it consists of different colors. When sunlight passes through air, we see it as white light. But as soon as a raindrop appears in the path of the sun's rays, a sunbeam, passing through this drop and refracting twice, forms a rainbow: the multi-colored rays that make up the sunbeam change their direction and deviate at unequal angles - they diverge in the form of a fan (refract). Light breaks up because shorter wavelengths, such as blue ones, bend more than longer ones, such as red ones. The scattered rays are reflected by the back side of the drops and are refracted again at the exit. These rays enter our eye separately, in the form of a bright rainbow.

A rainbow is a collection of individual raindrops that act as tiny mirrors. They first refract the sun's rays falling on them, decomposing white light into all colors, and then reflect with their inner side, making them accessible to our eyes (Appendix No. 1).

Each color of the rainbow is obtained due to the fact that different rays emerge from a refracting raindrop (prism) at different angles from each other, and we see clear, neat stripes of different colors.

The number of these colors is always 7 and they are arranged in strict sequence - each color has its own strictly assigned place.

When sunlight hits the beveled end of a mirror, the edge of a glass prism, or the surface of a soap bubble, we are able to see a whole set of colors in it. In each of these cases, what happens is that the white rays split up according to their wavelengths into red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

As a result, a strip appears before our eyes, consisting of parallel lines of different colors, and at their boundaries one color smoothly transitions into another. This strip is called a spectrum. The red line is always at one end of the spectrum, and the purple line at the other. This is determined by the difference in wavelength of rays of different colors: it increases from violet to red. Therefore, looking at a rainbow, we see that the color is always red at the top and purple at the bottom.

A rainbow is essentially a spectrum that arcs across the sky.

Many people know the phrase: “Every hunter wants to know where the pheasant sits.”

Each word of this phrase begins with a letter representing a color: every (Red) hunter (Orange) wants (Yellow) to know (Green) where the (Blue) pheasant (Purple) sits. This is how easy it is to remember the colors of the rainbow.

But is white really made up of seven colors?

To answer this question, my mother and I did the opposite experiment. If white is made up of seven colors, then seven colors must produce white.

I divided the white circle into 7 equal parts and colored it in rainbow colors. Next, we inserted a ballpoint pen through the center of the circle and secured it. Having spun the circle, we saw how the multi-colored disk “turned” into white (Appendix No. 2).

A rainbow that appears after rain or in the splashes of fountains and waterfalls is a primary rainbow. But two rainbows also occur at the same time: the second rainbow is higher than the first, but less bright and the colors in it are arranged in the opposite order (Appendix No. 3).

To see a rainbow, you need to be strictly between the sun (it should be behind you) and rain, waterfall, splashes of water (they should be in front of you).

There are different types of rainbows found in nature. A very rare natural phenomenon is a fiery rainbow, and there are rainbows without rain (Appendix No. 4).

Conclusion: A rainbow appears in sunny weather after rain or in the splashes of a waterfall when the sun's rays pass through drops of water.

On the Internet I found unique photographs of a night rainbow. It turns out that a rainbow can be seen not only during the day in sunny weather, but also at night (Appendix No. 5).

A lunar rainbow (also known as a night rainbow) is a rainbow produced by the moon rather than the sun. A lunar rainbow is paler than a normal rainbow. This is because moonlight is less bright than sunlight. A lunar rainbow is always on the opposite side of the sky from the moon.

We are used to seeing rainbows in the summer when it rains. But you can also see a rainbow in cold weather: above a glacier, above houses (Appendix No. 6).

No two people can see the same rainbow. Light reflected from certain raindrops reflects off other raindrops from a completely different angle for each of us. This also creates a different image of the rainbow.

Since two people cannot be in the same place, they cannot see the same rainbow. Moreover, even each of our eyes sees a different rainbow

Conclusion: A rainbow can be seen at almost any time of the day, even at night in the winter cold.

Making rainbows at home

To test my assumptions, I conducted several experiments.

First experience.

Equipment: CD, light source - electric lamp.

I took a CD and caught the beam of an electric lamp. The result is a rainbow like this (Appendix No. 7). The sharper the angle, the brighter the color scheme of the rays.

Experience two.

Equipment: a basin filled with water; mirror on a stand installed in water; light source - flashlight.

Mom and I put a basin of water on the floor and lowered a mirror into it. They “caught” the flashlight’s beam with a mirror, and as a result of the refraction of the beam in the water and its reflection from the mirror, a rainbow appeared on a white sheet of paper. At the same time, the light was turned off. The result is a rainbow (Appendix No. 8).

Experience three.

Equipment: basin, soap solution, wire.

I poured water into a basin and added soap (shampoo). I rolled the wire into a ring and lowered it into a soap solution. After holding it in the solution, I carefully took the ring out of it - a film formed inside the ring. Looking under a bright light from the back side at the soap film in the ring, I saw stripes of colors there, like a rainbow (Appendix No. 9).

Conclusion: The experiments carried out confirmed my assumptions - a rainbow can indeed be obtained at home, even with the help of artificial light.

Conclusion

The theme of rainbows interested me very much, I studied the literature and conducted experiments. All the assumptions I made were basically confirmed.

The rainbow is an amazing natural phenomenon, one might say a miracle of nature, which will never cease to amaze us. Now we know that you can get a rainbow at home, at any time. A “homemade” rainbow is no worse than a natural one, and it also makes your soul happier.

List of sources and literature

ABC of nature. More than 1000 questions and answers about our planet, its flora and fauna. Moscow, Reader's Digest publishing house, 1997, p. 15.

Great encyclopedia of knowledge. Moscow, publishing house "EXMO", 2012, p. 113.

I explore the world: Children's encyclopedia. Physics / ed. O. G. Hinn. Moscow, Publishing House AST-LTD, 1998, p. 480.

Article on the site http://potomu.ru/world/461.html.

Site materials www.astronet.ru.

Appendix No. 1.

Appendix No. 2

Reverse experience.

Appendix No. 3

Double rainbow.

Appendix No. 4.

Fire rainbow.

Appendix No. 5.

Night lunar rainbow.

Rainbow at night over a waterfall.

Appendix No. 6.

Rainbow in cold weather.

Rainbow over the glacier.

Appendix No. 7.

CD experience.

Appendix No. 8.

Experience with a mirror.

Appendix No. 9.

We have all repeatedly seen such an amazing and fascinating natural phenomenon - a rainbow. How does it arise, due to which a huge seven-color arc appears in the sky? Let's take a closer look at the essence of the rainbow as an atmospheric and natural phenomenon.

What is a rainbow as a natural phenomenon?

Rainbow is one of the most beautiful natural phenomena that is usually observed after rain. Rainbows are visible after rain because the sun illuminates many water droplets in the Earth's atmosphere. In shape, a rainbow is a semicircle or arc made up of seven colors of the spectrum - a multi-colored stripe. The higher the viewing point of a rainbow, the fuller and richer it is: for example, from the height of an airplane you can even see the full circle that the rainbow describes. There is one natural pattern: when you observe a rainbow arc, the sun is always located behind you.

How and why does a rainbow appear?

A rainbow is primarily a physical phenomenon, which is based on the interaction of light and water. Sunlight is refracted and reflected by water droplets that float in the atmosphere. Drops reflect or deflect light in different ways. An observer who stands with his back to the sun (the source of light) sees a multi-colored glow in front of him. This is nothing more than white light, decomposing into a spectrum of seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. But it should be noted that the rainbow, like many physical phenomena, has a peculiarity: seven colors are nothing more than an optical illusion, but in fact the spectrum is continuous, and its colors smoothly transform into each other through many intermediate shades.

Rainbow colors

The colors of the rainbow are familiar to almost everyone thanks to the children's rhyme “Every hunter wants to know where the pheasant sits.” It is customary to talk about seven spectral colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. However, the number of colors perceived by the eye also depends on the culture of a particular people and era. Let's look at how different peoples saw rainbow colors.

For the Russian people, a rainbow is an arc of seven colors.
For the British and Americans, a rainbow is six colors, since blue and blue are the same color in English.
Among the Australian Aborigines, the rainbow was associated with six symbolic snakes.
Some African tribes distinguish only two rainbow colors, or rather, shades - light and dark.
The great ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle identified only three primary colors: red, purple and green, and their combinations, in his opinion, gave the remaining colors.

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Rainbow - this magnificent colorful phenomenon has long captured the imagination of people. Looking at a rainbow, you want to believe in miracles and magic. Which natural phenomenon can compare in beauty with a rainbow? The appearance of a rainbow in the sky means that good weather will soon come and the bad weather will end. There are many legends about the rainbow, which you will learn about from this article. We will also try to understand in more detail the reasons for the appearance of this wonderful natural phenomenon and learn about interesting facts about the rainbow. Read the article, ask questions and share your impressions in the comments.

In the ancient Indian epic “Romayana” we find the expression “the seven-colored bow of the Thunderer.” Thunderer is the supreme god, the king of kings Indra. The ancient Greeks saw the rainbow as a mediator between heaven and earth, that is, between gods and people. They identified the rainbow with the beautiful Iris and depicted her dressed in silk, which intersected with all seven colors. Iris's indispensable attribute was golden wings. They symbolized her fickle nature: after all, a rainbow always appears and disappears unexpectedly.

The Arabs believed that the rainbow was the bow of the god of light Kuzakh. After a grueling struggle with the forces of darkness that sought to prevent the sun from appearing in the sky, Kuzakh invariably emerged victorious and hung a rainbow bow on the clouds. Since ancient times, the Slavs considered a rainbow after heavy rain to be a harbinger of the victory won by the god Perun over the spirit of evil.

Thunder and lightning alone are not enough to create a rainbow. If the sky is overcast and there is no shadow on the ground, you cannot see the rainbow. And only when the sun breaks through the layers of clouds are the conditions created for its appearance. Beautiful! Changeable and elusive!

Explaining the appearance of a rainbow in the sky from a theoretical point of view is not particularly difficult. This is elementary optics. How do rain and sun draw a rainbow!?

As you know, light consists of a combination of several colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, cyan and violet. White light passing through the prism is reflected on the other side with all the colors of the rainbow. But in order to understand what a rainbow is, you need to understand what happens inside the prism and how white light emits so many colors.

A prism is a trihedron, usually made of transparent glass or plastic. The prism “draws” a mini-rainbow by decomposing complex light into a spectrum when a narrow strip of white light hits one of the faces of the triangle. The scattering of light in a prism occurs due to the so-called “refractive index” of the glass. Each material has its own distinctive refractive index. When light passes through a material (such as light traveling through air and striking a glass prism), the difference in refractive indices between the air and the glass causes the light to bend. The bending angle is different from the wavelength of the light. And as white light passes through the two planes of the prism, different colors bend (refract) and something like a rainbow appears. The rainbow itself is created by raindrops acting as tiny prisms. Light enters a raindrop, reflects off the other side of the raindrop, and exits. During this process, light is decomposed into a spectrum, just as it happens in a transparent triangular prism. The angle between the incoming light beam and the outgoing light beam is 42 degrees for red and 40 degrees for violet. Due to the difference in bending angles, a rounded rim appears on the sky, i.e. rainbow. Sometimes two rainbows may appear at once. A second rainbow can form because some raindrops can be reflected twice at once. In order for two reflections to occur simultaneously, droplets of a certain size are needed. The basic process of creating a rainbow is the refraction (refraction) or “bending” of light. Light bends, or rather changes its direction, when it moves from one environment to another. Rainbows occur because light travels at different speeds in different environments.

So, the bend of a ray of light falls into a transparent prism. One side of the light wave is slightly slower than the other, so the beam passes through the air-glass interface at a different angle (essentially the beam of light is reflected from the surface of the prism). The light turns again when it leaves the prism because one side of the light is moving faster than the other. In addition to the process of bending light itself, the prism separates white light into its component colors. Each color of white light has its own characteristic frequency, causing the colors to travel at different speeds as they pass through the prism.

Color that refracts slowly in glass bends more as it enters the prism from air, because color moves at different speeds in different environments. The color moving faster in the glass does not weaken significantly, so it does not bend as much. Due to this, all the colors of the rainbow that make up white light are separated by frequency when passing through the glass. If glass refracts light twice, as a prism does, a person can see all the separated colors of white light much better. This is called scattering. Raindrops can refract and scatter light just as they do inside a prism. Under certain conditions, as a result of such refraction of light, a rainbow appears in the sky. Each drop is unique in its own way: the drop has a completely different size and consistency compared to a glass prism. When white sunlight penetrates a few raindrops at a certain angle, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet colors appear in the sky, i.e. rainbow. The colors of the visible light spectrum are red and violet at the end of the rainbow.

As light passes through air into a drop of water, the constituent colors of white light begin to scatter, with the speed of each color depending on their frequency. The violet color reflected in the drop is refracted at an obtuse angle, and the red color at an acute angle. On the right side of the drop, some light escapes into the air, and the rest is reflected back. Some reflected light comes out from the left side of the drop, and refraction occurs again as the light moves toward the air.

Thus, each drop scatters white sunlight into its component colors. But why do we see wide bands of color, as if each rainy area is scattering only one specific color? This is because we only see the color that comes from each drop. When, for example, drop A scatters white light, at a certain angle only one red light comes out, visible to our eye. Other color rays are refracted at a different angle, so we don't see them. Sunlight penetrates the falling drops equally, so all nearby drops emit red light. The speed of drop B across the sky is slightly lower, so it will no longer be able to emit red light. But since all other colors have a smaller wavelength, drop B in this case will emit orange and all other colors of the rainbow in descending order. The last color to close the rainbow is violet with the smallest wave of glow. If you look at a rainbow from above, you can see a whole circle consisting of seven thin circles of different colors. From the ground, we can only see the arch of the rainbow appearing on the horizon. Sometimes two rainbows appear in the sky at once, one of which has a clear outline, while the other looks like a blurry reflection of the first. A faint rainbow is formed according to the same principle as a clear one, but in this case the light is reflected from the surface inside the drop not once, but twice. As a result of this double reflection, the light comes out of the drop at a different angle, so the second rainbow appears slightly taller. If you look closely, you will notice that the colors in the second rainbow are reflected in the opposite order compared to the first rainbow. As a result of such refraction of light and scattering of rays, a rainbow appears. The sunlight and water that are familiar to us together create a new work of art, given to us by Mother Nature.

Brilliant with bright, magnificent colors, the rainbow amazed the poetic imagination of primitive peoples. It either stretches above the ground, or sparkles in the very garden of Iria, where birds of paradise and winged souls rest on it.

The rainbow was recognized as having a special, divine character, like all luminaries, therefore, just as in nature the rainbow is on the verge between a thunderstorm and sunlight, so in folk tales it is associated with the god of thunder and lightning Perun and the light goddess Lada, one from the names of which, by the way, is Perunitsa the Thunderer. In legends, the rainbow is compared to a wide variety of objects.

Since ancient times, the Slavs have believed that the rainbow “drinks” water from lakes, rivers and seas: like a snake, dipping its sting into the water, it draws water into itself, and then releases it, which is why it rains; At the ends of the rainbow a pot of ancient gold coins is hung. The legend depicts three deities, one of whom holds a rainbow and raises water from the river with it, another creates clouds from this water, and the third, breaking them, causes rain. This is like a triune embodiment of Perun.

The Western Slavs have a belief that a witch can steal a rainbow and hide it, which means causing a drought on the earth.

There are also such beliefs: a rainbow is a bridge between heaven and earth; or the belt of the goddess Lada; or the path to the next world, along it the souls of the dead sometimes come to the sinful earth. This is a symbol of abundance, and if the rainbow does not appear for a long time, one should expect famine and crop failure.

In some places it was believed that the rainbow was a shiny rocker with the help of which Lada Perunitsa draws water from the sea-ocean, and then irrigates fields and fields with it. This wonderful rocker is kept in the sky, and at night - in the constellation Ursa Major. Riddles about the rainbow also retained its likeness to a rocker and buckets of water: “Two seas hang on an arc,” “A multi-colored rocker hangs over a river.”

Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians and Western Ukrainians believe that those who pass under the rainbow change their gender. In western Bulgaria they believed that “if someone wants to change his gender, he must go to the river during the rain and where the rainbow “drinks water”, in the same place he must drink, and then he will turn from a man into a woman and from a woman to a man." This property of the rainbow can be used to magically change the gender of the unborn child. "If a woman who has only given birth to girls goes to drink water in the place where the rainbow “drinks,” then after that she will have water. boys will be born."

In Bulgaria, there is also the idea that the rainbow is “the belt of the Lord, which he rinses during the rain or dries after the rain.” At the same time, the rainbow is also called the “samovil belt.” Serbs and Croats say that God uses the rainbow to show women how to weave and what colors to use.

In Ancient India, a rainbow is the bow of Indra, the thunder god; in addition, in Hinduism and Buddhism, the “rainbow body” is the highest yogic state attainable in the realm of samsara.

In Islam, the rainbow consists of four colors - red, yellow, green and blue, corresponding to the four elements. In some African myths, a celestial serpent is identified with a rainbow, which serves as a guardian of treasures or envelops the Earth in a ring. American Indians identify the rainbow with a ladder along which one can climb to another world. Among the Incas, the rainbow was associated with the sacred Sun, and the Inca rulers wore its image on their coats of arms and emblems. Among the Chibcha-Muisca Indians, the rainbow was considered a good deity. In the specific mountain conditions of the Cordillera, an amazing natural phenomenon is observed: against the background of a foggy haze, a rainbow sometimes appears, as if framing a many times enlarged reflection of the observer himself. The main sanctuary dedicated to the goddess of the Rainbow, Chibcha, was erected next to the Tekendama mountain waterfall, where the brightest arc always lights up as soon as the rays of the sun hit the water splashes. In Scandinavian mythology, "Bivrest" ("shaking road", "trembling path") is a rainbow bridge connecting heaven and earth. He is guarded by the guardian of the gods, Heimdall. Before the end of the world and the death of the gods, the bridge collapses. In Ancient Greece, the goddess of the rainbow was the virgin Iris, the messenger of the gods, the daughter of Thaumantes and the oceanids Electra, the sister of the harpies. She was depicted with wings and a caduceus. Her robe is made up of dew drops shimmering with the colors of the rainbow. According to the ancients, the rainbow connected heaven and earth, therefore, with the development of Olympic mythology, Iris was considered a mediator between gods and people. Unlike Hermes, Iris carried out the orders of Zeus and Hera without showing her own initiative. The canonical image of Iris is a winged maiden (usually sitting next to Hera), holding a vessel of water, with which she delivered water to the clouds.

According to the Bible, the rainbow was created by God after the great flood, as a sign of his promise to never send a flood to people again. In the Talmudic tradition, the rainbow was created by God on the sixth day of creation. For the Greeks, the rainbow is a manifestation of the goddess Iris. In medieval Christian images, Christ on the Day of Judgment appears seated on a rainbow. The rainbow is also associated with the Virgin Mary, the mediator between God and people. The symbolism of the rainbow depends on the number of colors in it.
So in China, there are five colors in the rainbow, the combination of which represents the unity of ying and yang. Based on the Aristotelian triad, the Christian West sees in it only three (symbol of the Trinity) primary colors: blue (the heavenly nature of Christ), red (the passion of Christ) and green (the mission of Christ on earth).
The rainbow is an image of peaceful heavenly fire, in contrast to lightning as an expression of the wrath of heavenly forces. The appearance of a rainbow after a thunderstorm, against the backdrop of peaceful nature, together with the sun, made it possible to interpret it as a symbol of peace. In the Bible, the rainbow appears (in the episode with Noah's Ark) as a sign that the water will no longer flood; in general it is seen as a symbol of the covenant made between Yahweh and people. The hemisphere of the rainbow was considered a sphere (the other half of which is supposedly immersed in the ocean), which
emphasized the divine perfection of this natural phenomenon. According to a common interpretation, the red color of the rainbow represents the wrath of God, yellow - generosity, green - hope, blue - pacification of natural forces, purple - greatness.

In the sky the rainbow shines and sparkles,
It’s as if the passage through it is open to us.
A multi-colored ray descended from the sky,
The forest shines in the beautiful rainbow dust.

The foliage shimmers like emerald,
Reflections of the rainbow are visible here and there,
The forest plunged into a fairy tale and became silent,
He wants to hold on to the wonderful moment.

Science has long explained everything to us,
But it is not possible to fully understand nature.
Seeing a rainbow in the blue sky,
We dream that these are symbols from the outside.

Delight takes us into a sky-high flight,
Perhaps the answer to a miracle awaits there.
The rainbow is shining for us, fresh and good,
The bright colors make your eyes glow with happiness.

February 17, 2013 | Categories: Nature , Photo , Other

Rating: +17 Article author: Soul Views: 156014

One of the most amazing phenomena of inanimate nature is the rainbow. She always surprised and amazed with her beauty. Scientists have long speculated about this mysterious effect. As everyone knows, a rainbow in nature accompanies rain, as if accompanying it. Its appearance depends on how the cloud that brought the precipitation moves. It occurs before the rain, during it, or when it has already ended.

What is it?

This is a colored arc with an angular radius of 42°, it can be seen against the background of rain. It is found in the side of the sky that is opposite to the sun. This despite the fact that the sun is not covered by clouds. Very often such conditions are created in the hot season, that is, in the summer, when mushroom rains occur. The center of the rainbow is an antisolar point, diametrically opposite to the Sun. Even small children know that there are seven colors in the rainbow. You can also see it near fountains and waterfalls. She appears against the background of drops.

Where does this mysterious multi-colored light come from? A rainbow in nature is sunlight broken into pieces; it is its source. It moves so that it appears to us to come from that part of the sky that is opposite to the Sun. The features of the rainbow are explained by the Descartes-Newton theory. It was created more than three hundred years ago.

The object that splits a beam of light into its particles is called a prism. If we are talking about the appearance of a rainbow, then drops of rain or water help it. Since they play the role of that very prism. A rainbow in nature is a huge spectrum or band of multi-colored lines that are formed by breaking apart as they pass through raindrops.

Colors

The shades are arranged in strict order. It looks, for example, like this: “Every hunter wants to know where the pheasant sits.” Very easy to remember. The first letter in each word corresponds to the name of the color on the rainbow itself:

Red.
Orange.
Yellow.
Green.
Blue.
Blue.
Violet.

A rainbow in nature appears at a time when the Sun shines along with the flow of rain. To see this magnificent phenomenon, you need to be between the celestial body and, of course, precipitation. Only the Sun should be behind, and the rain should be in front.

Rainbow as a natural phenomenon

This arc, shining with a variety of colors, has always interested primitive peoples. They came up with different stories and fables. For example, the fact that a rainbow opens over the planet, and birds from paradise and soul rest on it. And the Slavs have long believed that a rainbow, as it were, drinks water from lakes, seas and rivers, like a snake, lowering its sting, draws water and lets rain. There is a strange belief that an evil witch will one day steal the celestial arc, and a drought will come on the planet that will destroy all life.

Each country has its own beliefs that tell about national heroes. For example, the Arabs believed that the rainbow was the bow of the god Kuzakh. And after a difficult battle with the dark forces that did not want the Sun to shine in the sky, he hung his weapon on the clouds. Or that a rainbow is a line between the earth and the sky. And the souls who lived in the heights descend along it, visiting our planet. Croatians believe that God teaches women to combine colors correctly using the rainbow, since it contains seven

A little conclusion

Rainbow is a natural phenomenon that amazes with its beauty. For many peoples, it personified a symbol of great success, especially if you were lucky enough to see it double. And if you managed to drive under it or pass through it, then luck will follow you everywhere! And children are very happy when they see nature, so colorful and mystical, inventing their own stories and wonderful, good fairy tales. And most importantly, they unconditionally believe in them and share them with others.

Ankudinova Valeria

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Ministry of General and Vocational Education

Sverdlovsk region

Municipal state educational institution

"Verkhnedubrovsk secondary school"

A wonderful natural phenomenon - a rainbow-arc

abstract

Performer: Valeria Ankudinova, 3rd grade student,

Head: Malykh E.I., primary school teacher of the first quarter. categories

Verkhneye Dubrovo, 2013

Introduction

Rainbow is one of the most beautiful natural phenomena. I once heard a fairy tale and it said that where the rainbow ends there is treasure. Many tried to find them, but to no avail.

Among the brightest natural phenomena, the rainbow is one of the most beautiful.What natural phenomenon can be compared in beauty to a rainbow? The aurora is possible, but not many people have seen it.The thunderstorm passes, and a rainbow flashes in the sky. Sometimes you can see two rainbows at once. The second, as a rule, is much paler than the first, and the colors in it are in the reverse order.She is so beautiful that she is sung in many songs, described in literature, and legends are made about her. Many people, like me, look forward to the rain so they can admire the rainbow.

Adults do not perceive rainbows the same way as children. For children, a rainbow is magic, and for adults it is memories of childhood and joy.

Then I decided to find out the whole history of the origin of the rainbow.

What kind of multi-colored miracle of nature is this? How is a rainbow formed? Is it possible to observe this beauty at home? What other rainbows are there?

These questions interested me. And this topic became interesting to me because not many people know how a rainbow is formed. To answer all the questions that arose, I decided to conduct research.

By exploring this mystery of nature, I will be able to give an accurate answer to the questions I have posed.

Target my job: to find out the reason for the appearance of a rainbow.

Delivered by me tasks:

Find out who colored the rainbow.
Learn the history of the study of rainbows.

Object of studyis a natural phenomenon of the rainbow.

Subject of research– the concept of “rainbow” as a natural phenomenon.

What is a rainbow?

There are several versions of where the word rainbow came from. The most common thing is that the word “rainbow” comes from “rayduga”, which translated from Ukrainian means “variegated arc”.

In order to find out the reason for the appearance of rainbows, I started by studying literature. In explanatory dictionaries the concepts of rainbow are given:

A rainbow is a multi-colored arc in the sky, formed due to the refraction of sunlight in raindrops.
Rainbow is an atmospheric phenomenon observed during or after rain.

The rainbow is one of the most beautiful natural phenomena, and people have long wondered about its nature. Even Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, tried to explain the reason for the rainbow.

I learned that rainbows can be seen near waterfalls, fountains, and sprinklers. At fountains and waterfalls it happened that two or more arcs were seen. You can create a curtain of droplets yourself from a hand-held spray bottle and, standing with your back to the sun, see a rainbow created with your own hands. When watering plants in the garden on a bright sunny day, you can also see a small rainbow in the splashes of water.

How does a rainbow appear?

After a hot, muggy day, the clouds gathered and the rain began to pour. When it stopped, the setting sun sparkled over the horizon. And at that time, under the dark departing cloud, like a giant arc curved towards the ground, a rainbow appeared: seven pure colors, imperceptibly turning into one another - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

Why did such a miracle appear in the air? And the reason for this is sunlight, which appears to be white, but in fact consists of seven colors. When rays of sunlight pass through the air, we see them as white light. But on their way they met a raindrop. And the drop is close in shape to a prism - a geometric figure.

When a ray of sunlight passes through a glass prism or through a drop, its constituent rays are deflected at unequal angles. Red rays deviate the least, and violet rays deviate the most. The white beam breaks up into component rays, and a beautiful multi-colored bunny appears on the wall behind the prism, and a rainbow appears in the sky.

The outer edge of the rainbow's curved stripe is usually red. It is followed to the inner edge by other colors of the rainbow spectrum, up to blue and violet.

Sometimes you can see another, less bright rainbow around the first one. This is a secondary rainbow, in which the light is reflected twice in the drop. The secondary rainbow has an inverted color order, with purple on the outside and red on the inside.

A rainbow only appears during a rainstorm, when it rains and the sun shines at the same time. You must be strictly between the sun (it should be behind you) and the rain (it should be in front of you). Otherwise you won't see the rainbow!

The sun sends out its rays, which, falling on raindrops, create a spectrum. The sun, your eyes and the center of the rainbow should be on the same line.

If the sun is high in the sky, it is impossible to draw such a straight line. This is why rainbows can only be seen early in the morning or late afternoon. A morning rainbow means the sun is in the east and the rain is in the west. With an afternoon rainbow, the sun is in the west and the rain is in the east.

To remember the sequence of colors in the rainbow, people have come up with special simple phrases. In them, the first letters correspond to the first letters of the color names:

How once a lantern broke a lantern with his head.
I sewed blue sweatshirts for the dog, the giraffe, and the bunny.
Every hunter wants to know where the pheasant is going.

What types of rainbows are there?

During my research, I learned that there are different rainbows on earth.

Rainbows come with one or two arcs.Few people know, but there is also a night rainbow. At night, when the rain stops, a rainbow can also appear as a result of the action of rays reflected by the moon. Undoubtedly, it is not as bright as during the day, but it is clearly visible. In winter, a rainbow appears very rarely, but in its colorfulness and picturesqueness it differs from all others.

Red...

A red rainbow appears in the sky only at sunset and is the last chord of an ordinary rainbow. Sometimes it can be extremely bright and remain visible even 5-10 minutes after sunset. At sunset, rays travel a longer path through the air, and since the refractive index of water for longer wavelength (red) light is less than for shorter wavelength (violet), red light bends less when refracted. When the Sun sinks below the horizon, the rainbow first loses its shortest violet waves. They dissipate immediately. Then the blue, cyan, green, yellow disappear... What remains is the most persistent one - the red arc..

White...

Why does the rainbow seem white to us? The point is the size of the droplets from which the sun's rays are reflected. A white rainbow appears in foggy weather. The sizes of the fog particles are so small that the individual colored stripes into which a sunbeam breaks up when refracted do not spread out to the sides like a wide multi-colored fan, but barely open. The colors seem to overlap each other, and the eye no longer distinguishes colors, but sees only a colorless light arc - a white rainbow.

Lunar...

At night, when the full, definitely full moon hangs high in the dark, necessarily dark, sky and at the same time it is raining opposite the moon, you may be lucky enough to see a night rainbow! There are quite a lot of conditions for its appearance, so we rarely see a lunar rainbow. Rare, but possible! And she will also seem white to us. Although in fact it is quite colorful.

The fact is that our vision is designed in such a way that in low light the most sensitive receptors of the eye - the “rods” - almost do not work, so the lunar rainbow looks whitish.

Fiery…

A fire rainbow is one of the rarest atmospheric phenomena. It is formed due to the passage of light through light cirrus clouds and occurs only when the sun is very high in the sky...

It turns out that the mysterious heavenly “fire” is born from ice! After all, cirrus clouds are located very high above the earth, where it is very cold at any time of the year, and therefore they consist of flat ice crystals!

Unfortunately, such a coincidence, to put it mildly - hexagonal crystals, cirrus clouds and a high-standing sun - does not happen often. That is why a fire rainbow is a relatively rare and unique phenomenon.

"Smiley" in the skyAn inverted rainbow (otherwise called near-zenith) is a type of fire rainbow and is even rarer. In addition to the conditions for the appearance of a fire rainbow, for it to appear as a rainbow smiley face in the sky, the center of its arc must be at the zenith point, located approximately 46° above the Sun. The near-zenith rainbow is very bright, with the colors of the spectrum reversed: violet at the top, red at the bottom.

Newton's study

I wonder if anyone in the history of mankind has tried to understand the nature of the rainbow?

I found the answer to this question on the Internet.

The first attempt to explain the rainbow was made in 1611 by Archbishop Antonio de Dominis. His explanation of the rainbow was contrary to the Bible, so he was excommunicated and sentenced to death.

The scientific explanation of the rainbow was first given by Rene Descartes in 1637. Descartes explained the rainbow based onlaws refraction and reflection of sunlight in drops of falling rain. But he did not yet know about the decomposition of white light into a spectrum during refraction. That's why Descartes' rainbow was white.
30 years later, Isaac Newton explained how colored rays are refracted in raindrops. According to the figurative expression of the American scientist A. Fraser, who has made a number of interesting studies of the rainbow in our time, “Descartes hung the rainbow in the right place in the sky, and Newton colored it with all the colors of the spectrum.”Although the multicolor spectrum of the rainbow is continuous, according to tradition, it is divided into 7 colors. It is believed that Isaac Newton was the first to choose the number 7, for whom the number 7 had a special symbolic meaning. Moreover, initially he distinguished only five colors - red, yellow, green, blue and violet.

Even though the Descartes–Newton theory of the rainbow was created more than 300 years ago, it correctly explains the main features of the rainbow, including the arrangement of colors.

So, we found out that the rainbow is round. In addition, it is multi-layered. Passing through the drop, the white sunbeam turns into a series of colored funnels, inserted one into the other, facing the observer. The outer funnel is red, orange, yellow are inserted into it, then green, etc., the inner one is purple.

Legends of the peoples of the world

People have long wondered about the nature of this beautiful phenomenon. Humanity has associated the rainbow with many beliefs and legends.

In ancient Greek mythology, for example, a rainbow is the road between heaven and earth along which the messenger between the world of the gods and the world of people, Iris, walked.

In China, they believed that the rainbow was a heavenly dragon, the union of Heaven and Earth.

In Slavic myths and legends, the rainbow was considered a magical heavenly bridge from heaven to earth, a road along which angels descend from heaven to collect water from rivers. They pour this water into the clouds, and from there it falls as life-giving rain.

Superstitious people believed that rainbows were a bad sign. They believed that the souls of the dead passed to the other world along a rainbow, and if a rainbow appeared, it meant someone’s imminent death.

The rainbow also appears in many folk superstitions related to weather prediction. For example, a rainbow that is tall and steep predicts good weather, while a rainbow that is low and flat predicts bad weather.

Conclusion

Having completed this work, I became convinced that rainbows are a well-known optical phenomenon in the atmosphere; observed when the sun illuminates a sheet of falling rain and the observer is between the sun and the rain. Rainbows are seen not only in the veil of rain. On a smaller scale, it can be seen on drops of water near waterfalls, fountains and in the surf. In this case, not only the Sun and the Moon, but also a spotlight can serve as a light source.

The arrangement of colors in the rainbow is interesting. It is always constant. The red color of the main rainbow is located on its upper edge, violet on the lower edge. Between these extreme colors, the remaining colors follow each other in the same sequence as in the solar spectrum. In principle, a rainbow never contains all the colors of the spectrum. Most often, blue, dark blue and rich pure red colors are absent or weakly expressed. As the size of raindrops increases, the color stripes of the rainbow narrow, and the colors themselves become more saturated.

At the same time, I learned how, thanks to Newton, centuries-old ideas about the origin of flowers were destroyed.