Diffraction And Polarization In Rainbows

Description
The lecture deals with all the aspects of rainbow.Its arrangement of colours,, radius of arc, intensity of different colours, width of bow, time of the day when it is likely to appear and the direction in which it can be seen and whether light from the rainbow is polarized or not.Refraction of light form a rain drop is explained along with the angle of deviation of different colours through the drop is calculated. A garden sprinkler can be used to create our own rainbow The different types of rainbow as the drops of water becomes smaller and smaller offers picturesque view of rainbows with diffraction bands. Using fog and sunlight the teacher creates a halo around him. Using the concept of Brewster's law , polarization of rays from a rainbow is explained.

Prof.Walter Lewin, 8.02 Electricity and Magnetism, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare), http://ocw.mit.edu (Accessed June 25, 2011). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms/#cc