Rainbow Rays

• Rainbows are composed of rainbow rays.
• Rainbow rays are responsible for an observer’s perception of a rainbow.
• Rainbow rays are rays of light of a single wavelength that have their origin in individual raindrops. They can be explained in terms of their angular distance from the rainbow axis at the moment they contribute to an observer’s view of a rainbow.
• Rainbow rays are ephemeral. They are not individually observable but more a way of conceptualizing the fact that at a specific moment and in a specific position a raindrop will transmit one spectral colour towards an observer before falling further, perhaps to reappear in a different position and another colour.
• Individual rainbow rays produce the intense appearance of each of the different spectral colours that together constitute the phenomenon of rainbows.
• Rainbows are composed of millions of rainbow rays and each one has its origin within a single raindrop.
• A rainbow ray is a ray of a single wavelength that for a second is responsible for a bright flash of its corresponding colour as a result of being in exactly the right place at the right time.
• Rainbow rays are always located amongst the rays that deviate the least as they pass through a raindrop and bunch together around the minimum angle of deviation.
• The millions of microscopic images of the Sun that produce the impression of a rainbow function in a similar way to the pixels that produce the images we see on digital displays.
• Rainbow rays tend to out-shine all other sources of light in the sky (other than the Sun) and account for the brilliance and imposing appearance of rainbows.
• Because raindrops polarize light at a tangent to the circumference of a rainbow, the path of rainbow rays dissects raindrops exactly in half.
• So:
  • Individual rainbow rays account for the appearance of spectral colours of a single wavelength within the arcs of a rainbow.
  • Bands of colour within a rainbow are composed of rainbow rays that together transmit narrow spreads of wavelengths towards an observer.
  • The overall appearance of a rainbow as a singular phenomenon can be accounted for by optical and geometric rules that determine the passage of light through raindrops and in the process account for rainbow rays.
• Remember: the notion of light rays and rainbow rays are useful when considering the path of light through different media in a simple and easily understandable way. But in the real world, light is not really made up of rays. More accurate descriptions use terms such as photons or electromagnetic waves.

A ray of light (light ray or just ray) is a common term when talking about how and why rainbows appear.

• The idea that light is made up of rays is so commonplace when describing and explaining rainbows that it is easily taken for granted.
• The idea of light rays is useful when trying to model how light and raindrops produce the rainbow effects seen by an observer.
• Light rays don’t exist in the sense that the term accurately describes a physical property of light. More accurate descriptions use terms like photons or waves.
• Modelling light as rays is a way to discuss and represent the path of light through different media in a simple and easily understandable way.
• When light rays are drawn in a ray-tracing diagram they are represented as straight lines connected at angles to illustrate how light moves and what happens when it encounters different situations and conditions.
• More accurate descriptions of light use terms such as photons or electromagnetic waves.
• Don’t forget that:
  • The incident rays of light that contribute to a rainbow seen by an observer are those that approach raindrops parallel with the rainbow axis.
  • To understand why incident rays are always parallel with the rainbow axis we need to think in terms of what the observer sees. See: 2.7 Observer’s point of view.