How Can You Put a Rainbow in a Science Kit?

How Can You Put a Rainbow in a Science Kit?

February 3rd, 2010 // 3:44 pm @ admin

 

We live in a very curious world; One that is recreating itself at the atomic level every second we breath. Our bodies are changing out cells with new ones, photosynthesis occurs in tree leaves to replenish oxygen in our atmosphere, and somewhere, right at this very moment, a child is marveling a rainbow. It is easy to overlook these things when we are wowed by technologies and innovations that make our lives easier. But where do those technologies come from? Understanding natural phenomena can:

• Help scientists better understand how to use natural elements in our everyday lives.

• It can help them learn ways to apply them to products that will make our lives easier and safer and more efficient.

• Help scientists better understand why things happen in nature.

It is the scientific process that accomplishes this result, and without it we would still be wondering what is in a rainbow.

A rainbow is an optical phenomenon that occurs when electromagnetic rays (sunlight) pass through droplets of water in the Earth’s atmosphere. The visual effect that is a result is the splitting of those waves of light into the different colors of the spectrum-red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, always in that order. This is called light refraction. When the light enters into the raindrop, the speed at which it is travelling is slowed and it bends slightly until it travels through the back of the raindrop where the speed changes again and is bent again in the other direction. Rainbows are visible only when the incident light is behind the person viewing the rainbow. If you were on the other side of the rainbow looking towards the sun, you would not see it because by the time the light makes it through all the water droplets in the air, it has been scattered too much and it loses its intensity. How can this phenomenon be reproduced? Where else do we see this phenomenon happen? You can see little rainbows on the surface of bubbles or in the mist of a waterfall or in an opal gemstone. This can be reproduced in the Nano Science Kit chemistry experiment using silicon dioxide (silica).

This chemistry project illustrates:

• How a microstructure can cause light diffraction.

• How water molecules are arranged in the atmosphere when a rainbow occurs

• Changing the speed of light causes spectral light display

• Different wavelengths of light

The structure called a photonic crystal is designed to take light from the sun and split it into its separate parts. These separate parts are called wavelengths of light. Every color displayed is a different size, which is directly related to the size of the water droplet or silica sphere. The chemistry kit from Opalscience includes all the necessary components to recreate the same structure that creates a rainbow by using silica and water instead of water and air-Just add light.

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Category : Blog & Science Kits