An observer perceives bands of colour when visible light separates into its component wavelengths and the human eye distinguishes between different colours.
In the presence of a rainbow, an observer will typically see six bands of colour (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet) rather than a unique colour corresponding with each wavelength.
- When sunlight is dispersed by rain and forms a rainbow, an observer will typically distinguishes red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet bands of colour.
- Although a rainbow contains electromagnetic waves with all possible wavelengths between red and violet, some ranges of wavelengths appear more intense to a human observer than others.
- The phenomenon of perceiving distinct colour bands is typically attributed to the characteristics of human colour vision, or as an artefact of human colour vision.
- There is no property belonging to the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum that that results in the appearance of bands of colour to an observer.
- The visible spectrum is composed of a continuous range of wavelengths between red and violet that produce a continuous range of corresponding colours.
- In experimental situations, human observers can distinguish between spectral colours corresponding with many hundreds of different wavelengths of light.
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