I hope you will find things among my random thoughts that resonate with you and yours. I'd love to read your reactions in the Comments, and I'll be sure to visit you in return. Best regards, Mary

Monday, April 21, 2014

Rainbow



Getty Images has 82 pages of rainbows so the choice was hard but very enjoyable.  

When I lived in Santa Fe there was one in the western sky each day around 5 pm above Los Alamos in the Jemez Mountains. Sometimes there was a pair. But if you want to read something poetical about the beauty of a rainbow you're in the wrong place. My nature is more scientific, so here you'll get as brief an explanation as possible.

A "rainbow" occurs when sunlight shines on and interacts with drops of water. The keys are that . . .
  • Rain and sunshine must be in different parts of the sky, 
  • The observer is between the rain and the sunshine, and 
  • The angle of light hitting the raindrops is between 40 and 42 degrees. 
When those requirements are met each raindrop will be refracted to produce one color, slightly different from all the rest. Together those millions of raindrops produce a rainbow in its well-known cascading shades.  That's all there is to it.



7 comments:

  1. Wonderful Getty Images here, Mary. Thank you for this information. I need to take a look there since I've only tried Photopin so far. Sometimes it's difficult to find the right photos.
    I see you have Google + followers. I must join Google +, you wouldn't believe what a coward I am at times.
    Science is good. I like how everything works so naturally.

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    1. Thanks for the visit! At the moment I'm in the middle of writing an email to you with Laurel Burch pictures and I'll add something about Getty Images which I just discovered and now use a lot. I am enjoying our conversations! Mary

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  2. Interesting rainbow facts. I'm sure where I live we have a separate micro-climate from the city which results in beautiful rainbows amongst the hills due to the tropical climate.

    a-z
    donnaalam.com

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    1. Thank you for visiting.
      I just visited your blog and give it high marks. Interesting topics, spare writing, just what I like best in others, so different from my own style. I look forward to the rest of your posts.

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  3. simple and beautiful, short and sweet :)

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    1. Thank you, Lena. I just jumped to G+ where I read more of your blog and left a comment. I enjoy your blog very much! One of the bright sports of AtoZ.

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  4. Beautiful Mary, I've adored rainbows since a little girl and interesting facts. :)
    Sorry for the slow visits the internet's letting me down, playing catch up... *sigh*
    Maggie@expatbrazil

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