this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
42 points (92.0% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35963 readers
938 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Now I know that rainbows are formed due to refraction of light from the sun hitting raindrops and light waves leave at varying angles between 40-42 degrees or somewhere around there. Also, that they’re round.

What I don’t understand is how it’s consistent, like I assume it’s hitting many raindrops, but all these drops are in different places so why does it still form a nice circle. Furthermore, why isn’t the whole sky a rainbow if it’s raining and thus hitting all the drops. I suspect the angle of the sun is playing a part but I’m not a science man.

Please help me get this thought out of my head.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

It works that way because as you said, it only appears at a certain angle between the sun and your view.

As you move, so does the rainbow. Because the place in the sky that matches that angle, also changes.

So it is happening everywhere the rain falls into direct sunlight. You only see it in one spot, because that's the one spot that matches the angle for you specifically.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago (4 children)

OMG. I think I get it now.

This is why we are in the centre because that’s the right angle to see it, and it being a circle is because again we are in the centre so it spans evenly. Is that correct?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago

You’re my second favourite Steve now, after Scuba Steve of course.

[–] XeroxCool 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Yes. And it's rare on cloudy days because the rainbow only works if you have a point-source of light. Clouds diffuse the light so instead you get an infinite amount of rainbows, all overlapping back into white.

I recommend you find a garden hose nozzle with a mist option. See the circle rainbow, taste the circle rainbow, hunt the double rainbow, find the rearward rainbow. go crazy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Thanks. I am going to play with the hose. That sounds like a euphemism.

[–] AFKBRBChocolate 5 points 5 months ago

You've got the answer to the question, and I'm late to the party, but here's a helpful graphic that also shows the inner and outer color band angles.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for breaking it down to this as well, I tried to get the comment above but this helped make a bing sound in my head

And thank you for asking in the first place

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

No problem. I have endless questions and sometimes they make it on here.

[–] Drummyralf 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Lies! You only say this so that you'll be the first at the pot of gold at the end of every rainbow!