the Realist

ISIT POSSIBLE TO FIND THE ENDOF THE RAINBOW?

SORRYTO you-know-what on your parade, but no. To explain whynot,youshould understand what it takes for a rainbow to happen in the first place. The science is complicated, but basically sun rays bend when they enter raindrops and ricochet off the interior side of the droplets. Then, when the light exits the drops, it has to bend at the magical angle of 40 to 42 degrees. The multicolored arc is visible only to those who have the center of the rainbow straight in front of them, explains Peggy LeMone, a senior scientist for the National Center of Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colorado.

UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE FOR MODERNTIMES

What’s more, if you try to move toward a rainbow, it never seems to get closer. That’s because different drops are reflecting back at you as you move. To put it another way, if your friend across the street is also looking at a rainbow, she isn’t seeing the same one as you, says LeMone: “If you quickly slide into her position, you’ll see her version.” Really, a rainbow is a brilliant optical illusion—which is why leprechauns, those tricksters of Irish folklore, picked the elusive end of the rainbow to hide their pots of gold.

Written by

Andra Chantim

Photograph by

Ralph Smith