WEBVTT - Selects: Rainbows: Delighting humanity since forever 0:00:01.240 --> 0:00:04.800 Hi, everybody. Not a double rainbow coming your way, just 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:08.680 a single rainbow. In this Selects episode from February three, 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:14.480 two thy fifteen, the Year of Our Lord. This one 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:20.400 is Rainbow's colon Delighting Humanity since Forever. If I'm not mistaken, 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:22.960 that was a Josh Clark title, and I love it. 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:27.160 Good job, my friend. Check it out. We explain all 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.600 about how rainbows work, and now you can know too. Enjoy. 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:42.440 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.640 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:50.400 Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry Rowland. Have we ever 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.720 said Jerry's last night don't mix? So? Well? We have. 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.640 Now it's out there. It's on the internet. Even someone 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:00.240 really updated our Wikipedia page. If you look lately, it's 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:05.840 robust that even says they're producer Jerry Jerome Rowland. How 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:07.520 do they know that? I guess I've said it on 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:08.560 the podcast before. 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:12.720 I am sure that you have. So how are you doing? 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:17.199 I'm great man, Rainbow's As the author points out, they've 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:19.280 inspired countless fairy tale songs and legends. 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.440 Man, I love rainbows. I think rainbows are just fantastic 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:26.720 They're probably the greatest graphic design of all time. I 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:27.959 just think rainbows are great. 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:30.319 Well, it is funny to when you read the different 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:33.240 articles how people it's kind of corny when they talk 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:37.480 about how they delight in astound. But darn it, when 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.360 you see a rainbow, even as a jaded, cynical adult, 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:44.399 there's no way you can't look and just go. 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:45.959 Oh, that's pretty neat. 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:48.520 Yeah, at the very least, you'll go, oh, a rainbow. 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:51.240 If somebody says, hey, there's a rainbow over there, you're 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:52.240 going to look up. 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:53.040 I don't care. 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:56.440 And if you doubt, if you doubt a rainbow's ability 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:58.280 to astound adults, all you have to do is look 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.800 up Yosembity Bears Double Rainbow video, which I watched today. 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:05.520 It's pretty pretty great stuff. 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.960 All Bear Vesquez. Yeah, yeah, that guy's what. 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:09.560 Does it mean? 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:14.840 I know what it means. You're on peyote. You know. 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.600 Next time someone does see a rainbow and say that, 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:21.280 I'm gonna test everything and just say so, and I'm 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:23.720 gonna luck, all right, see if they just think I'm 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:24.760 dead inside. 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.160 Let's see what happens, all right. I'm curious to see 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:32.000 whether you can not look, of course, I look so 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:34.480 chuck that we're not the first to be delighted and 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:38.960 amused by rainbows. It goes back several years, decades at least, 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:41.400 they've been around forever. There There is a lot of 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.800 mythology surrounding them, because you know, they're unusual. They don't 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.280 happen every day, and well, I guess they depends on 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:52.880 where you live, but it's not necessarily a normal occurrence. 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:57.720 No. I found that the philosopher Descartes Rene Descartes was 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.680 the first to describe kind of the modern accurate theory 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:03.000 in sixteen thirty seven. 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:04.480 Oh yeah, yeah, nice. 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:06.640 He's the first one. And it's like, hey, wait a minute, 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:10.359 there's some refraction and going on here. 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.480 Right, Well, most people usually associate that with Newton. 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.079 Yeah, well he's the first one to describe the spectrum. 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.560 Right he was. And apparently I saw this cool video 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:25.720 by Philip Ball on The Atlantic that basically it said 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:31.720 that Newton just made up the ROYGBIV spectrum. What do 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:37.280 you mean, so the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:42.200 Sure is Newton's interpretation of the rainbow. Before that, all 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:44.840 sorts of different cultures had different ideas of what made 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.280 up a rainbow, how many colors there were, what the 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:53.520 colors were, and our interpretation of the rainbow spectrum is 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.200 a Newtonian invention, and a lot of people say, it's 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.760 not seven, it's actually six, Indigo, not really there Newton 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:05.960 And apparently Newton was trying to shoehorn the rainbow spectrum 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:10.640 into the musical octave. So he's he tried. He's trying 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:17.000 to shoehorn music, which has sound wavelengths with light, which 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.960 has wavelengths, and making them one and the same. But 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.159 history has kind of shown like, no, there's six. Yeah, 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:25.919 we'll go with six for the rainbow. So Roy GBIV, 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.720 which we learned in school. Yeah, apparently I learned school. 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.719 You did too, Oh yeah, yeah, sure, it's just Roy Gibb. 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:34.120 There's no way to go. 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.479 Yeah. Well he was busy making is h cookies from 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:41.280 figs too, so he had lots of stuff going on. 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:41.960 Those are good. 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.760 Oh yeah, I can mound some picnicts. 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.120 Yeah, because they're good for you, so you can eat 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.400 the whole bag one's sitting if you want. 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.440 Yeah. I'd never buy them, but if I see them 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:54.359 on like if you give blood or something, they're on 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.520 a snack table. That's when I get my fig Newton on. 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:02.600 Yeah, so Newton wasn't the only one. Before Newton, there 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:04.960 was like a whole Celtic legend about the pot of 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.320 gold at the end of the rainbow. There was God 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:11.560 saying more bad after the Great Flood and promising it 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.960 would never happen again by showing rainbows come out after rains, 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:17.719 like it's fine, it's stopping, We're not going to flood 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:18.359 the earth again. 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:21.560 Of course, you can't find a pot of gold at 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:23.120 the end of a rainbow because you cannot go to 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.239 the end of a rainbow. Yes, you never. You can't 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:28.839 go under a rainbow. You can't go over a rainbow. 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:33.040 And we'll explain all this why in just a second. Sure, 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.040 but first forget we have to talk about to get 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.080 to the bottom of how rainbows work, which to me 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:39.880 I think is awesome. It's one of those things where Okay, 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.480 this is how it works, we understand it now. Yeah, 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.360 I love science. Stuff like that, baked in science, yes, 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:51.160 just done. It's not like scientists think this is what's happening, 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.160 and it's probably true, but that remains to be seen. 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:55.719 This is one of those ones where, like we know 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:58.279 how rainbows work, and here's how. But to get to 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.760 the bottom of rainbows, we have to understand how light 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:02.560 works first. 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:05.360 Yeah, and I thought this article, even though there was 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:07.960 a lot more digging in to do, I thought the 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:13.640 shopping cart explanation for the basically how light travels, yeah, 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.040 was pretty pretty darn good, fantastic. You know. One reason 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:19.840 they say visible spectrum is because the light is moving 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.680 so fast that you can't see it. It's like and 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:26.160 the combination of all those is white light, like the 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:29.240 sun is white light, because all those colors are super 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.200 imposed on one another. Yeah, But when it hits like 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:34.479 a water droplet or something else, it's going to slow 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:37.359 down enough, and we'll get to all this where you 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.720 can see those individual parts of the spectrum. 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.880 Right, And that shopping cart explanation, like you said, it 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:48.400 definitely simplifies the whole thing, and it's not quite right, 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:50.720 but it does a pretty good job of illustrating the 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:52.440 principles that are going on, you know. 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:56.880 Yeah, So basically light is moving at different speeds depending 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:00.520 on what kind of medium it's traveling through. Right, So, 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:02.120 like I said, when it hits water, it's going to 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:04.120 slow down a lot. That's going to change its speed. 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:08.480 If you're pushing a shopping cart, the asphalt is the medium. 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.520 If you push it onto grass, it's going to slow down. 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:13.320 That's a new medium. It's a new medium. 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.320 It's gone. It's transitioned from one media to another. 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.480 That's right. And if you hit that grass at an angle, 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:22.600 and we've probably done this if you had to, we're 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:24.920 able to steal a shopping cart. As a kid, you're 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:28.720 pushing your friends around in it, you're hauling through the neighborhood, 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.040 and you hit that grass at an angle, and it's 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:33.880 going to take a really sharp turn because that front 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:35.960 right wheel, let's say, is going to hit the grass 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:38.440 and all of a sudden, really quickly, it's going to 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:40.840 be traveling at a much slower speed than the rest 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.000 of it, and your friend's going to tumble out, and 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:44.160 everyone's going to have a good time. 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.640 Exactly. Just wear your helmet so that imagine that the 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:52.200 shopping cart is a photon of light or a beam 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:59.280 of white visible sunlight, and the grass is a prism. Yeah, 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.200 so the parking lot was air and it was moving through. 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:04.720 Just find no problem. But when it hit that prism, 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.120 it slowed down. Yes, And because it came at an angle. 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.600 One side of the light hit sooner and it made 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.680 it turn, and that is called refraction. The bending of 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:16.800 light is refraction. 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.280 Yeah. And in the case of a rainbow, that prism 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.280 is a rain drop. So I mean this is the 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:24.680 simple quick version. We'll get more detailed. But when it 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:27.080 hits that rain drop, it's going to slow down and 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:27.880 it's going to bend. 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:34.360 Right. So depending on the reflective index, which is how 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:42.760 much light bends, depending on the wavelength, the wavelength of light, 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.440 which is another term for color, sure is going to 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.480 bend at a different angle. So when that visible light, 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.960 which is all the colors of the visible spectrum combined, 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.960 hits a prism and it bends or a rain drop, right, 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:59.720 it bends at different angles because the wavelengths are different, 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:05.160 and so that visible light comes undone into its component wavelengths, 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:07.880 which are all the colors of the rainbow, and they 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:08.839 spread out. 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:15.200 It's called dispersion, right, Yeah, And that's it really. But 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:17.560 like I said, in this case, we're talking about rain 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.280 and because rain is you know, rain drops are all 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.120 different shapes and sizes, it's not going to be as 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:26.760 consistent as like a prism might be but it's going 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.679 to have the same effect. It's going to hit the 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:33.280 rain drop, it's going to slow down like the wheel 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.600 digging into the grass of the shopping cart, and it's 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.320 going to refract, and some of it's going to keep going. 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.160 Some of it's going to bounce back, but different the 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.480 different color is going to bounce at a different angle. 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:49.480 And it's all relative to where you are on the ground. Like, 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.160 no person two people see the same rainbow, right, So 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:54.679 we're all subjective. 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.360 Right, So when light hits the prism and it bends, 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:01.920 like you said, because the different lights have different wavelengths, 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:06.960 different colors have different wavelengths. Red has the longest wavelength, 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:11.080 so it bends the least. Yes, I believe violet has 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:15.920 the shortest wavelength, so it bends the most. But because 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:20.240 again because of these different wavelengths, they bend differently, so 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.760 that the light spreads apart and when it exits the prism, 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:29.480 it bends again and it forms that spectrum of separated 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:31.280 light separated out. 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:33.560 And this, if you notice we keep saying the word bend, 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:37.360 That's why a rainbow is an arc instead of like 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.679 a right angle, because the light is bending. 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.319 So Chuck We've been kind of teasing this a little bit, 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:46.240 but we'll get into exactly how you go from prism 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.320 ter rain, drop and hence to rainbow right after this. 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:12.719 All right, if you want to see a rainbow, or 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:14.960 if you're gonna see a rainbow, there need to be 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:19.400 three conditions. The sun's got to be behind you, big one. 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.680 You're gonna have moisture in front of you, right, and 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.679 you the sun must be shining that those sun's rays 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:30.079 must be shining at forty two degrees of what's called 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.280 the antisolar point, which is basically where the shadow of 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:37.439 your head is on the ground. Okay, so if you 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:40.199 can see the shadow of your head, that's gonna be 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.400 that forty two degree antisolar point, right. 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.360 So what you do is you put your back directly 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.319 to the sun, right, yeah, and then turn forty two degrees, 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:52.520 which I guess if it were negative forty two degrees, 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:54.560 you'd be turning to the left. So I guess you'd 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:56.720 be turning to the right a little bit about forty 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.040 two degrees, which you can kind of measure off in 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:01.120 your head. It's not quite for forty five degrees. And 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:05.160 if you're looking at rain and the sun's behind you. 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:07.240 You're gonna see where that forty two degrees is because 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:09.720 once you hit that point, there's your rainbow. 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:12.640 Yeah, but I mean you can move your body around 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:15.400 and still see the rainbow. I mean it's where the 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:17.559 sun is hitting. The sun's got to be hitting it 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:18.480 at forty two degrees. 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:23.240 I see. Okay, so Chuck, it doesn't matter then where 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:29.080 your head is. It's it's the rain drop's relation to 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.559 the sun. This needs to be forty two degrees the 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:33.680 producer rainbow. 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.439 Yeah, the sunshine must be hitting it at forty two degrees. 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.839 Okay, So let's let's get back to basics again for 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:44.280 a second. When the sunlight hits the rain drop, each 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.840 individual rain drop is acting like a prism, right, that's right. 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:51.559 So that visible white light is hitting a rain drop, Yeah, 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:55.120 it's hitting it at an angle. It's going kaboom into 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:59.240 like a colored spectrum inside the rain drop, and then 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:04.200 it's gonna flecked back again, refract again, exiting the rain drop, 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.920 so it bends again and it comes back at you. 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:14.000 The thing is is when you see a light colored 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:17.240 light wavelength from a rain drop, you're not seeing the 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.160 whole spectrum. You're not seeing millions of little rainbows. You're 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:23.480 seeing one big rainbow. And the reason why is because 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.680 each individual rain drop, depending on its relation to you 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:30.640 and I guess to the sun, is shooting one color 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:33.839 at you. It's shooting all colors at you, but you're 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:36.440 only picking up on one color because there's only one 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:41.440 color from a rain drop that is angled correctly to 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:45.640 you and your line of sight so that it's the 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.559 only one you're picking up on is red. And then 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:51.760 all of the rain drops around that rain drop are 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:54.960 doing the same thing. They're shooting about in relation to 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.439 your line of sight, red towards you. But then the 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:02.000 rain drops a little lower than that, right are shooting yellow, 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:04.240 and then lower than that green, and so on and 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:06.240 so on, and so you get to violet. And so 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.880 these groups are rain these groups of rain drops are 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:15.360 producing this rainbow cumulatively as far as your line of 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:16.440 sight is concerned. 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:18.560 Yeah, because the rain is just falling, so where it 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:20.720 is in the sky, I mean, as it falls, it's 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:21.720 going to be changing color. 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:22.320 Right. 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.400 You know, it's not like frozen in mid air or anything. 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:26.560 But it seems like it. 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:28.960 But it seems like it right exactly. 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:29.960 Isn't that phenomenal. 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:30.720 It really is. 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.360 I just think that's just as cool as it gets. 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.520 Yeah, it's super cool. And you'll always notice too, the 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:38.960 sky under the rainbow is going to be brighter than out. 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.240 And when you've got a double rainbow, which we'll get to, 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:48.680 the area between those two is usually really dark, right, 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:49.360 And that's. 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:51.520 Called the Alexander's Dark Band. 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:57.280 Yeah, Alexander's Band because he was Alexander Afrio Aphrodisius was 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:01.600 the first dude, huh to describe that. That's a great name, 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.880 Alexander Afrodisias. Yeah, it's pretty good. 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.440 It sounds like a seventies exploitation movie or something totally. 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.680 But yeah. So the reason why in between the double 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:16.760 rainbows you have Alexander's Band is because the light there 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:22.400 is reflecting away from you and it's so it's a 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:23.120 dark area. 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:23.840 Yeah. 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:28.040 So the sunlight hitting those rain drops is going away 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.760 like oh, it's dark inside the rainbow, all of that 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:35.120 light is reflecting back to you and you're seeing all 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:37.960 of the different colors come at you and they're recombining 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:41.720 indivisible light, so there's no color, it's just bright sunlight 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:42.280 in the middle. 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:45.520 Yeah, and that you know, sunlight they also always describe 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.120 it as white, I mean, sunlight as all the colors. 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:49.960 We just you know, can't see it. 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:54.080 Yeah, we should really do a whole How Color Works episode. 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.520 It's fascinating stuff. But yeah, depending on whether you're a 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:03.800 painter who's mixing chemical, whether you're a chemist or a physicist, Yeah, 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:06.760 white is either the presence of all colors or the 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:08.080 absence of color. 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.280 Right, you know, it's kind of mind blowing. 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:11.960 We should totally do how color Works. 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.120 Well, I guess after this break we'll talk a little 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:18.800 bit more about the double rainbow all the way and 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:21.160 even well we'll just leave it at that. 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:44.160 What does it mean? So, Chuck, you want to talk 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:46.600 about double rainbows and what forms them? 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:48.040 It's pretty much the same thing. 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:51.400 Right, Yeah, the lights refracted twice. 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:53.160 Yeah, it's just a double refraction. 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:55.360 Yeah. Well, what's cool is if you look at a 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.760 double rainbow, the one on top, the higher one that's 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:04.520 the second refraction, Yes, is reversed. So rather than red 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:08.280 being on the top, yeah, it's on the bottom. Yeah, 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:11.479 it's a reverse rainbow, is what a double rainbow is. 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:14.520 And you can have a triple and even a quad. Nice, 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.640 but it's rare. Yeah, like I've seen a little bit 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:20.960 of a triple once. I think, to where you just 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:25.520 see the faintest hint of that third one. And if 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:27.840 you're seeing that, that means the niche I think it's 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.639 called the primary and secondary. That means your primary is 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:34.040 super super super sharp. Yeah, to where it looks like 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:37.560 it's drawn on the sky, painted on the sky. Nice, 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:39.080 and then your secondary is gonna be a little more 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.960 faint than the third one because the triple refraction. You know, 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:45.080 it's not the easiest thing to occur in nature. 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.320 Yeah, And one of the things that makes the primary 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.320 rainbow and then hence the secondary. And I guess tertiarian 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:55.520 so on rainbows bright is the amount of sunlight and 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:59.080 the number of rain drops because remember those rain drops 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.679 that you're seeing that the spectrum is made up of 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:06.520 light wavelengths that's coming at you from a bunch of 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:08.840 different rain drops and they reinforce one another, and the 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.840 more they reinforce one another, the brighter the rainbow is. 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:14.400 Yeah, and you'll, I mean, I feel like I usually 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:17.160 see rainbows when it's not raining where I'm standing, right, 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.920 but that doesn't matter. It's you know, oh, you. 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.040 Can be being rained on and still see the rainbow. 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:26.040 Well, yeah, but it's like sometimes it's like a super 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.320 light rain where it has just rained really hard. Maybe 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:31.080 it's tapering off or maybe stopped altogether. But the point 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:34.720 is where the rainbow is. It's not like they said earlier, 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.760 you can't drive up to a rainbow. I'm going to 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:40.880 go up and find that thing, because it's just a 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.200 perspective trick basically. Right. 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:47.200 The only apparently from this Scientific American article you sent, 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.720 the only visual information we get from a rainbow is 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:52.480 the band of its arc. 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:55.120 Yeah, and everything else is what's around. 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.760 It, right, right, So, like, if a rainbow seems really huge, 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.639 it's because, say, the mountains in the background look small, 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:05.560 which makes the rainbow, by contrast, look very big and majestic. 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.719 If we're close to, say, like the mountains are like 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.880 a cell phone tower or something like that, the rainbow 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:13.960 may look very small by comparison. 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:15.919 Yeah, And the way they liken it, and that I 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:20.000 think in that article I think was like the human head, 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:23.040 it's like roughly the same size, but if it was 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:24.600 right in front of your face, it would block out 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:26.760 a whole movie screen. But if it was further away, 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:29.440 it would just be like, hey, there's that guy's head. 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.080 It's the same thing, same thing. And then Phil Plait, 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:38.800 who's who does the Bad Astronomer blog for Slate, he 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:43.840 did a pretty good explanation of full circle rainbows. 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.000 Yeah, I had never ever heard of that until you 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:48.120 sent me that. So it makes sense though. 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.520 It totally does. So remember we talked about a rainbow 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.600 arcing over the sky and because the light is bent 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:55.080 out of the prism. 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:56.920 Well, no, it's because it starts on one part of 0:19:56.960 --> 0:19:58.920 the ground and ends on another part of the ground, right. 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:02.680 Where the goal is. The reason why it has that 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:06.439 arc is because what you're seeing is part of what 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:10.040 really is a full circle, and it's depending on where 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:13.280 you are. Now, you have a certain amount of rain 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:18.840 drops available to reflect the light to you. 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:19.320 Yeah. 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.240 Right, So when you're on the ground and you're looking 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:24.760 up or just over to the horizon, sure you have 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:26.840 a certain amount of rain drops available to you to 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.600 form a rainbow. If you were able to get away 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:33.359 from the ground, you have even more rain drops not 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:37.280 just above you, but now below you as well, and 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:39.879 you can see a full circle. That is the actual 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:44.200 real rainbow. Yeah, so a real rainbow depending on where 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.199 you are in relation to the ground is either a 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:49.800 part of a circle, an arc, or a full circle. 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:52.200 Yeah, and there was a picture. I mean he said 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.520 that pilots see him all the time, or I guess 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:58.199 if you're in astute flyer, that's not just like a 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:02.640 sleep with a black blankets, right, Yeah, you can look 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:04.040 out a window of a plane and see one too, 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:06.919 because you're above it. Right, It's pretty neat. I mean, 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:09.199 there was a photo of one and it was like, 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:11.320 oh wow, there's a full circle rainbow. 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:13.639 Full circle rainbow. It looks it looks kind of like 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:16.240 a lens flare a little bit, but yeah, to a 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:20.200 rainbow lens flair and Phil Plate had in that same 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:26.200 blog post a double circle rainbow, which was really neat. 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:29.600 Yeah, so go check that out. I agree that was 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:33.359 pretty cool. Yeah, you know that thing we were talking 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:37.440 about earlier too, about the perspective. That's why the I 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:39.040 think I thought you did it. Don't be dumb about 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:40.840 why the moon looks bigger? Have you done that? 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:44.240 No, it's so why can you see the moon during 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:45.119 the day sometimes? 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:46.560