WEBVTT - Rainbows: Delighting humanity since forever 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:12.639 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.320 Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry Rowland. 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.759 Have we ever said Jerry's last night? I don't think so. 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:22.680 Well we have now it's out there. It's on the internet. 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:26.079 Even someone really updated our Wikipedia page if you look lately. 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:32.200 It's robust that even says, uh, their producer Jerry Jerome Rowland. 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:34.320 How did they know that? I guess I've said it 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:36.760 on the podcast before. I am sure that you have. 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:42.000 So how are you doing? I'm great man, rainbows, As 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:46.360 the author points out, they've inspired countless fairytale songs and legends. Man, 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:50.519 I love rainbows. I think rainbows are just fantastic. They're 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.760 probably the greatest graphic design of all time. I just 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.400 think rainbows are great. Well, it is funny too when 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.320 you read the different articles how people it's kind of 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:01.840 corny when they talk about how they delight and astound. 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:05.960 But darn it, when you see a rainbow, even as 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:10.240 a jaded, cynical adult, I can I there's no way 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.399 you can't look and just go, oh, that's pretty neat. Yeah, 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:15.640 at the very least you'll go, oh, a rainbow. If 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.440 somebody says, hey, there's a rainbow over there, you're going 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.399 to look up. I don't care. And if you doubt, 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.520 if you doubt a rainbow's ability to astound adults, all 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:26.560 you have to do is look up Yosemite Bears double 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:32.360 Rainbow video, which I watched today. It's pretty pretty great stuff. 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:38.480 All bear vesque is what does it mean? I know 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:42.320 what it means. You're on pot. You know. Next time 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:44.720 someone does to see a rainbow and say that, I'm 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.680 gonna test everything and just say so now I'm gonna look, 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.240 all right, Let's see if they just think I'm dead inside. 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.600 Let's see what happens. I'm curious to see whether you 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:59.280 can not look. Of course I look, um, so chuck 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:01.840 that we're not the first to be delighted and amused 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:07.120 by rainbows. Several years, decades at least, they've been around forever. 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:09.959 There there is a lot of mythology surrounding them, because 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:13.680 you know, they're unusual. They don't happen every day, and well, 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.959 I guess they depends on where you live, but it's 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:21.960 not necessarily in a normal occurrence. No, I found that um. 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.880 The philosopher Descartes renee Decarte was the first to describe 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:30.919 kind of the modern accurate theory in six seven. Oh yeah, 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:33.440 he's the first one. It's like, hey, wait a minute, 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:38.560 there's some refraction and going on here, right, Well, most 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.160 people usually associate that with Newton. Yeah, well he's the 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:44.680 first one to describe the spectrum, right he was. And 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.800 apparently I saw this cool video by Philip Ball on 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:54.520 the Atlantic Um that basically said that Newton just made 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:58.880 up the roy G biv um spectrum. What do you mean? 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:04.200 So the the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:09.360 is Newton's interpretation of the rainbow. Before that, all sorts 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:11.840 of different cultures had different ideas of what made up 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.920 a rainbow, how many colors there were, what the colors were, um, 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:22.119 and our interpretation of the rainbow spectrum is a Newtonian invention. 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.040 And a lot of people say it's not seven, it's 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:29.959 actually six indigo, not really bare Newton. And apparently Newton 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:35.400 was trying to shoehorn the rainbow spectrum into the musical octave. 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:40.040 So he's he tried. He's trying to shoehorn music which 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:45.560 has sound wavelengths with light which has wavelengths and making 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.040 them one and the same. But history has kind of 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.000 shown like, non, there's six, we'll go with six for 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.120 the rainbow. So roy G BIV, which we learned in school. 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:58.280 Apparently I learned school. You did too, it's just roy 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:03.920 g h. Yeah. Well he was busy making is uh 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.800 cookies from figs too, so he had lots of stuff 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:10.880 going on. Those are good. Oh yeah, I can mount 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:13.320 some pig nets. Yeah, because they're good for you, so 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:16.719 you can eat the whole bag one sitting if you want. Yeah. 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.320 I'd never buy them, but um, if I see them 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:21.240 on like if you give blood or something, they're on 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:27.200 a snack table, that's when I get my fig Newton on. Yeah. So, um, 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.000 Newton wasn't the only one. Before Newton, there was like 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:32.280 a whole Celtic legend about the pot of gold at 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.039 the end of the rainbow. There was God saying more 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.840 bad after the Great flood and promising it would never 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.960 happen again by showing rainbows come out after rains like 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.719 it's fine, it's stopping, We're not going to flood the 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:48.120 earth again. Um. Of course you can't find a pot 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:49.440 of goal at the end of the rainbow because you 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.560 cannot go to the end of a rainbow. Yes, you never. 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.159 You can't go under a rainbow. You can't go over 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.640 a rainbow. And we'll explain all this why, Yeah, and 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:01.400 just a second, sure, but first we have to talk 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:03.440 about to get to the bottom of how rainbows work, 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:05.320 which to me I think is awesome. It's one of 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:07.839 those things where okay, this is how it works, we 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:11.080 understand it now. Yeah. I love science stuff like that, 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:15.240 um baked in science. Yes, just done. It's not like 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:19.480 scientists think this is what's happening, and that's probably true, 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:21.599 but that remains to be seen. This is one of 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:23.599 those ones where like, we know how rainbows work and 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:26.400 here's how. But to get to the bottom of rainbows, 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.520 we have to understand how light works first. Yeah, and 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:32.560 I thought this article, even though there was a lot 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.880 more digging in to do, I thought the shopping cart 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:41.359 explanation for for basically how light travels was pretty pretty 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.599 darn good, fantastic. You know, one reason they say visible 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:48.360 spectrum is because the light is moving so fast that 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.400 you can't see it. It's like in the combination of 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:54.200 all those is is white light like the sun is 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.200 white light because all those colors are superimposed on one another. 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:00.680 But when it hits like a water droplet or something else, 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.320 it's gonna slow down enough. And we'll get to all 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.599 this to where you can see those individual parts of 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:11.240 the spectrum, right, and and that that shopping cart explanation, 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.320 like you said, it definitely simplifies the whole thing, and 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.240 it's not quite right, but it does a pretty good 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.880 job of illustrating the principles that are going on. You know. Yeah, 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.880 So basically light is moving at different speeds depending on 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.560 what kind of medium, uh, it's traveling through. So, like 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:29.440 I said, when it hits water, it's gonna slow down 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:31.880 a lot. That's gonna change its speed. If you're pushing 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:36.159 a shopping cart, the asphalt is the medium. If you 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.880 push it onto grass, it's gonna slow down. That's a 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:41.360 new medium. It's a new medium. It's gone. It's transition 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.320 from one media to another. That's right. And if you 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:48.360 hit that grass at an angle, and we've probably done this. 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:50.520 If you had a were able to steal a shopping 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:52.960 cart as a kid, you're pushing your friends around in it, 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.680 you're hauling through the neighborhood. And you hit that grass 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.279 at an angle, and it's gonna take a really sharp 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.080 turn because that front right wheel, let's say, is going 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:04.920 to hit the grass and all of a sudden, really quickly, 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:07.320 it's gonna be traveling at a much slower speed than 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:09.760 the rest of it, and your friends gonna tumble out 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.160 and everyone's gonna have a good time exactly just where 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.400 your helmet. So so that imagine that the shopping cart 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.760 is a photon of light or a beam of white 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:26.640 visible sunlight, and the grass is a prism. Yeah. So 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.080 the parking lot was air and it was moving through 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:31.880 just find no problem. But when it hit that prism, 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.000 it slowed down. And because it came at an angle, 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:39.480 one side of the light hit sooner and it made 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.560 it turn. And that it's called refraction. The bending of 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:45.520 light is refraction. Yeah. And in the case of a rainbow, 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.920 that prism is a rain drop. So I mean this 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.320 is the simple quick version. We'll get more detailed. But 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.000 when it hits that raindrop, it's gonna slow down and 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:59.520 it's gonna bend. Right. So depending on the um refractive index, 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:06.680 which is how much light bends depending on the wavelength um, 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:11.520 the the wavelength of light, which is another term for color, 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.440 is going to bend at a different angle. So when 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.360 that visible light, which is all the colors of of 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:21.360 the visible spectrum combined, hits a prism and it bends 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:25.120 or a rain drop, right, it bends at different angles 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.400 because the wavelengths are different, and so that visible light 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:32.960 comes undone into its component wavelengths, which are all the 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:39.320 colors of the rainbow, and they spread out. It's called dispersion, right, yeah, 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.240 and that's it really, But like I said, in this case, 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:47.040 we're talking about rain uh and because rain is um 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:49.400 you know, raindrops are all different shapes and sizes, it's 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.760 not gonna be as consistent as like a prism might be, 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.160 but it's gonna have the same effect. It's gonna hit 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:59.800 hit the rain drop, it's gonna slow down like the 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.200 field digging into the grass of the shopping cart, and 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:07.000 it's going to refract and some of it's gonna keep 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.440 going someone it's gonna bounce back, but different the different 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:12.960 color is going to bounce at a different angle, and 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.440 it's all relative to where you are on the ground. Like, 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:20.560 no person two people see the same rainbow. Right, So, um, 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:24.000 when Abe right. So when when light hits the prism 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.560 and it bends, like you said, because the different lights 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:32.439 have different wavelengths. Different colors have different wavelengths. Um red 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.720 has the longest wavelength, so it bends the least. I 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:41.040 believe violet has the u shortest wavelength, so it bends 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:45.800 the most. But because again because these different wavelengths, they 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:49.360 bend differently, so that the light spreads apart, and when 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:54.040 it exits the prism, it bends again and it forms 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:58.839 that spectrum of separated light separated out. And this, if 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:00.880 you notice we keep saying the had been that's why 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:05.000 a rainbow is an arc instead of like a right angle, 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.000 because the light is bending. So Chuck, we've been kind 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.199 of teasing this a little bit. But um, we'll get 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.960 into exactly how you go from prison to rain drop 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:37.600 and hence the rainbow right after this. All right, if 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.000 you want to see a rainbow, or if you're gonna 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.720 see a rainbow, there need to be three conditions. Uh, 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.760 the sun's got to be behind you, You're gonna have 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:51.080 moisture in front of you, and you the sun must 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.480 be shining. That sun, those sun's rays must be shining 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:58.040 at forty two degrees of what's called the anti solar point, 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:00.679 which is basically where the shadow of your head is 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.920 on the ground. So if you can see the shadow 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:07.319 of your head, that's that's going to be that forty 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.800 two degree anti solar point. So what you do is 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.120 you put your back directly to the sun right and 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.679 then turn forty two degrees, which I guess if it 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.320 were negative forty two degrees, you'll be turning to the left. 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:22.280 So I guess you'd be turning to the right a 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.120 little bit about forty two degrees, which you can kind 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:26.920 of measure off in your head. It's not quite forty 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.560 five degrees. And if you're looking at rain and the 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.040 sun is behind you, you're gonna see where that forty 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:35.880 two agrees is, because once you hit that point, there's 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:38.840 your rainbow. Yeah, but I mean you can move your 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.760 body around and still see the rainbow. I mean that's 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:43.920 where the sun is hitting. The Sun's got to be 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.640 hitting at forty two degrees. I see. Okay, so Chuck, 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:53.080 it doesn't matter then where your head is. It's it's 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.800 the rain drops relation to the sun needs to be 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.600 forty two degrees. The producer rainbow. Yeah, the sunshine must 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:04.680 be hitting it at forty two degrees. Okay, so let's 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.880 let's get back to basics again for a second. Um. 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:12.280 When the sunlight hits the rain drop, each individual raindrop 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:16.240 is acting like a prism, right, So that visible white 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.760 light is hitting a raindrop, it's hitting it at an angle. 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:25.120 It's going kaboom into like a colored spectrum inside the raindrop, 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:30.400 and then it's gonna reflect back again, refract again, exiting 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.240 the raindrop, so it bends again and it comes back 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:40.160 at you. The thing is is when you see light 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.880 colored light wavelength from a rain drop, you're not seeing 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.720 the whole spectrum. You're not seeing millions of little rainbows. 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:49.760 You're seeing one big rainbow. And the reason why is 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:53.360 because each individual raindrop, depending on its relation to you 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:57.320 and I guess to the sun, is shooting one color 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:00.559 at you. It's shooting all colors at you, but you're 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.120 only picking up on one color because there's only one 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:08.120 color from a rain drop that is angled correctly to 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:12.360 you and your line of sight, so that it's the 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.280 only one you're picking up on, his red. And then 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.440 all of the rain drops around that rain drop are 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.679 doing the same thing. They're shooting about in relation to 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:25.160 your line of sight red towards you. But then the 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:28.680 rain drops a little lower than that are shooting yellow, 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:30.960 and then lower than that green, and so on and 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.080 so on, and so you get the violet. And so 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.559 these groups of rain these groups of rain drops are 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:42.040 producing this rainbow cumulatively as far as your line of 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:44.680 sight is concerned. Yeah, because the rain is just falling, 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:46.800 so where it is in the sky, I mean, as 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.320 it falls, it's going to be changing color. You know, 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:52.520 it's not like frozen in midair or anything, but it 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:55.199 seems like it. But it seems like it, right exactly. 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.640 And't that phenomenal? It really is. I just think that's 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:01.120 just as cool as it gets. Yeah, it's super cool. 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:03.920 And um, you'll always notice to the sky under the 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:06.760 rainbow is going to be brighter than out. And when 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.840 you've got a double rainbow, which we'll get to the 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:15.319 the area between those two is usually really dark, right, 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:19.560 And that's called the Alexander's Dark Band. Yeah, Alexander's Band 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:24.760 because he was Alexander Frio. Aphrodiseus was the first dude 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:30.560 to describe that. That's a great name, Alexander Aphrodiseus. Yeah, 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.160 it's pretty good. It sounds like a seventies exploitation movie 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.560 or something. Um. But yeah, So the reason why in 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:41.440 between the double rainbows you have Alexander's band is because 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:48.680 the light there is reflecting away from you and it's 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.360 so it's a dark area. So, uh, the sunlight hitting 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.480 those rain drops is going away and you're like, oh, 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:58.920 it's dark inside the rainbow. All of that light is 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.080 reflecting back to you and you're seeing all of the 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.600 different colors come at you and they're recombining indivisible lights, 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:10.000 so there's no color, it's just bright sunlight in the middle. Yeah, 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.320 and that you know sunlight. They also always describe it 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:15.520 as white, I mean sunlight as all the colors. We 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:17.720 just you know, can't see it. Yeah, we should really 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:22.280 do a whole um How Color Works episode. It's fascinating stuff. 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.960 But yeah, depending on whether you're a painter, um who's 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:29.880 mixing chemical color, whether you're a chemist or a physicist, 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.520 white is either the presence of all colors or the 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.960 absence of color. You know, it's kind of mind blowing. 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:40.160 We should totally do how color works. Uh. Well, I 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:42.080 guess after this break we'll talk a little bit more 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:46.480 about the double rainbow all the way and even well, 0:15:46.520 --> 0:16:09.920 well we'll just leave it at that. What does it mean, so, Chuck, 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.360 you want to talk about double rainbows and what forms them, 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.280 it's pretty much the same thing, right, Yeah, the lights 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:20.560 refracted twice. Yeah, it's just a double refraction. Yeah. Well, 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:22.720 what's cool is if you look at a double rainbow, 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:26.800 the one on top, the higher one, that's the second refraction, 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:32.640 um is reversed, so rather than red being on the top, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.800 it's on the bottom. Yeah, it's the reverse rainbow. Is 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:38.720 what a double rainbow is. And you can have a 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:43.200 triple and even a quad, but it's rare, Like I've 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.520 seen a little bit of a triple once. I think, 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.800 um to where you just see the faintest hint of 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:53.200 that third one, And if you're seeing that, that means 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:56.040 the initially I think it's called the primary and secondary. 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.480 That means your primary is super super super sharp. Yeah, 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.400 to where it looks like it's drawn on the sky, 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:05.280 painted on the sky, and then your secondary is gonna 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:06.960 be a little more faint than the third one because 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:10.280 the triple refraction, you know, it's it's not the easiest 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.159 thing to occur in nature. Yeah, and one of the 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.280 things that makes the primary rainbow and then hence the 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.280 secondary and I guess herst ayan so on rainbows bright 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:23.800 is the amount of sunlight and the number of raindrops, 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:29.040 because remember those raindrops that you're seeing, that the spectrum 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:32.560 is made up of light wavelengths that's coming at you 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.200 from a bunch of different raindrops, and they reinforce one another, 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:37.600 and the more they reinforce one another, the brighter the 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:40.480 rainbow is. Yeah, And you know, I mean I feel 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:42.720 like I usually see rainbows when it's not raining where 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.840 I'm standing, but um, that doesn't matter. It's you know, 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:49.639 you can be being rained on and still see the rainbow. 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.600 Well yeah, but it's like sometimes it's like a super 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:54.880 light rain where it has just rain really hard. Maybe 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.359 it's tapering off or maybe stopped all together. But the 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:00.560 point is where the rainbow is. It's it's not like 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.120 they said earlier, you can't drive up to a rainbow. 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:06.680 I'm gonna go up and find that thing because it's 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.240 a it's just a perspective trick basically, right. The only 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:14.560 apparently from this Scientific American article you sent, the only 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:18.440 visual information we get from a rainbow is the band 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:23.280 of its arc. Yeah, and everything else is what's around it, right, right, So, like, 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:26.440 if a rainbow seems really huge, it's because, say, the 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.600 mountains in the background looks small, which makes the rainbow, 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:34.080 by contrast, look very big and majestic. If we're close to, say, 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:36.359 like the mountains are like a cell phone tower or 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:41.080 something like that, the rainbow may look very small by comparison. Yeah, 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:43.640 and the way they like in it, and that I think, um, 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.560 and that article I think was like the human head. 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:49.639 It's like roughly the same size, but if it was 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:51.200 right in front of your face, it would block out 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:53.879 a whole movie screen. But it was further way, it 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:56.000 would just be like, hey, and there's that guy's head. 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.600 It's the same thing, same thing. Um. And then Phil Plate, 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:03.800 who is a who does the Bad astronomer Um blog 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:09.159 for Slate, he did a pretty good explanation of um 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.800 full circle rainbows. Yeah, I had never ever heard of 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.520 that until you sent me that, so it makes sense though, 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:17.119 it totally does. So. Remember we talked about a rainbow 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.200 arching over the sky and because the light is bent 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.000 out of the prism, Well, no, it's because it starts 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:24.639 on one part of the ground. And ends on another 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.719 part where the goal is. Um. The reason why it 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.639 has that arc is because what you're seeing is part 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:36.080 of what really is a full circle, and it's depending 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.560 on where you are. Now, you have a certain amount 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:46.320 of raindrops available for to reflect the light to you. Right, 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.440 So when you're on the ground and you're looking up 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:51.640 or just over to the horizon, you have a certain 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.400 amount of raindrops available to you to form a rainbow. 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.879 If you were able to get away from the ground, 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:01.560 you have even more raindrops that's just above you, but 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:04.760 now below you as well, and you can see a 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:08.560 full circle. That is the actual real rainbow. Yeah. So 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:11.120 a real a real rainbow, depending on where you are 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:14.199 in relation to the ground, is either a part of 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:17.399 a circle, an arc, or a full circle. Yeah. And 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:19.400 there was a picture. I mean he said that pilots 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:22.440 see him all the time or I guess if you're 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:25.680 an astute flyer, that's not just like asleep with a 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:29.199 black blanket of your face. Right. Um, you can look 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:30.640 out a window of a plane and see one two 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.639 because you're above it. It's pretty neat. I mean, there 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:36.359 was a photo of one and it was like, oh wow, 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.320 there's a full circle rainbow, full circle rainbow. It looks 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:42.199 it looks kind of like a lens flare a little bit, 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.880 but it's a rainbow lens flare. And um, phil Plate 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:50.920 had in that same blog post a double circle rainbow, 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:55.200 which was really neat. Yea, so go check that out. 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.199 I agree that was pretty cool. Um. Yeah, you know 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:01.679 that thing we're talking about earlier to about the perspective. 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:04.879 That's why the I think I thought you did it. 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:06.960 Don't be dumb about why the moon looks bigger? Have 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.280 you done that? No? It's so why can you see 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:13.960 the moon during the day sometimes? Why is that? Well 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:15.919 I'll tell you why, because I saw it like a 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:18.200 one the other day that was like super late in 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:21.600 the day. Well, the reason why, A better question is 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:23.840 why can't you see the moon all the time, even 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:26.560 during the day. So it's not the moon is very bright, 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:29.359 it's it's the brightest object in the sky, second only 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:31.920 to the sun. Sure, but it also gets its light 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:34.600 from the sun. So most of the time when you 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:39.400 can't see the moon during the day, it's because the 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:43.680 moon is behind you. So the light that it's getting 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:46.000 from the sun is behind you. Now, if the moon 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:49.080 is closer to the Sun. Like depending on where the 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:52.320 moon is in its lunar phase, then you can look 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:54.760 up and see the Sun and the Moon at the 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.360 same time. It's above the horizon. In other words, so 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:01.600 if you if the moon were always visible above the horizon, 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:03.400 you'd always be able to see it during the day. 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:06.600 And it just has to do with where it is 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:09.520 in relation to the Sun in the lunar phase. Does 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:12.639 that make sense? Yeah, if if if it's man, just 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:14.720 go watch that. Don't be dumb on it. Yeah. They 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:19.000 call that a bonus, an impromptu bonus. But the reason 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:21.000 why the moon will look really huge in the sky 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:23.159 is because the same thing we're talking about with the 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:26.119 perspective like the mountains, is like when you're low on 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:30.000 the horizon, it's gonna look enormous. Um if there's a 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:34.520 lot less stuff. Yeah, and near close to you, it's 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:37.399 gonna look very big. Yeah. And when I went to 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:41.680 Montana years ago, my explanation I got because you step 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:45.080 off the plane and you think, wow, this sky does 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:47.440 look bigger, Like what's the deal? They call it big 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:49.919 Sky Country and it really does look bigger. And the 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:52.680 explation I got from the locals, what's it's because the clouds. 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:56.159 So again it's just a perspective trick. So like the 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:58.560 mountains are way over there. I think it's just the 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:01.680 clouds that they typically out of, the big, huge puffy 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:05.119 clouds and um, but they look big in relation to 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:08.000 the mountains in the distance. Yeah, I think that's the deal. 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:10.720 So it makes the sky appear to look larger. Plus 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:14.400 I I imagine also there's fewer obstacles and obstructions, so 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:17.200 that it's just there's more sky to see and take 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:19.600 in just looking around, right, Yeah. Yeah, Like when I 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:21.359 lived in Yuma and you go out in the desert 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:24.240 and you can see like a hundred and eight degrees 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:27.359 from horizon to horizon, um, but they don't have the 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:31.520