One of the most beautiful (physicist’s beautiful) things I have seen in my experiments was how the bows created in a raindrop perform double roles. Let me describe this particular experiment, for I believe it is worth it.
With the SOL (source of light) placed at a distance of about ¾ of a 4 cm radius glass ball, I projected the image (the conventional image) of the double rainbow system onto a wall. In such setup the primary and the secondary rainbows are perfectly superimposed on each other, which makes only the primary rainbow visible.
With the camera then placed to monitor the ‘profile’ of the setup I observed all four bows that are created in the drop.
As you can see in the photo above the two bows on the right side are the conventional primary and secondary rain-bows, which are to meet paths at the same point on the wall. On the left side there are also two bows, one primary and the other secondary. If you now look carefully at the conventional primary rainbow you’ll notice that it displays in the drop the spectral width of the secondary rain-bow, while from its display extending all the way from the drop’s surface to its image cast on the wall it is definitely the primary rain-bow.
If you next position yourself to have a look at the back of the drop you will see that from that vantage point the primary rain-bow appears now as a secondary one.
Now, I have been fortunate enough to see all these things, and I can tell you that once you get rid of any preconceived ideas and just start thinking virtually anybody should be able to understand quite well what’s going on in the matter, for truly every thing in the story becomes cohesively explainable.
For instance you can take a close look at the front side of the drop and you’ll be able to see the area onto which the SOL shines, with every point where a light ray hits marked by a little white dot. Beautiful!
The other day, when I wrote the second part of On rainbows, I finished and left quite abruptly by simply dropping a number of pictures at the end of the post without any explanation(s). That happened because I'd intended to go back and continue it. This morning, however, I decided instead to leave it as it was and start writing a new one.
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A few days ago I sent an email to Prof. Dr. Dietrich Zawischa, who is the man in charge of this website, with the following message:
Dear Dr. Zawischa,
It is deeply disturbing to see how grossly wrong people in your position can be in this day and age. Please take a quick look through a triangular prism at the picture attached and you'll see immediately what I mean (even though this is merely only one of the many, many flaws in your understanding of light and colour).
Have a good day, Professor.
To that email I had attached the picture below.
The following day I received this reply from Dr. Zawischa:
Dear Mr. Poradin,
may be it is even worse than you think. I took a thorough look through a triangular prism at the picture which you attached and I tried hard, but I could not see what you mean. Sorry.
Best regards Dietrich Zawischa
I answered immediately :
Dear Dr. Zawischa,
Thank you for your reply, even though I couldn't quite make out if it was candid, or sarcastic. In any event, after this email I'll be in a better position to judge.
The image I asked you to scrutinise was in regard to what you have asserted in your site about the apparent absence of the yellow colour in certain so-called subjective prismatic observations ("The spectrum of visible light-where is the yellow?"). Now, please take your prism, hold it with its vertex pointing to the left and then look carefully through it at each of the vertically displayed rectangles in the picture from different distances. The best way to do that is to place your prism very close to the screen monitor and then to slowly increase the distance between it and the screen by slowly bringing the prism closer and closer to your observing eye. If you do that then you should certainly be able to see perfectly what I mean.
Regards,
Remus Poradin
A few hours later landed in my inbox the following:
Dear Mr. Poradin,
I have taken a photograph of your picture through my prism. Well, it was easier to do with the vertex of the prism pointing to the right. The distance from the computer screen to the prism was about 1.5 m.
So this is what I saw, and it is exactly what I expected to see. I discuss only the rightmost part due to the white stripe. As the computer screen uses the primaries Red, Green, and Blue and no yellow primary, in this case there is really no yellow in the spectrum. And there is a gap between green and blue. If the same image were printed on white paper and illuminated by daylight, the result would of course be quite different. Such images can be seen on my page on the prism. Before continuing our discussion, you should consider what I have written there. And do the experiments!
If you want an answer, you should ask a question instead of letting me guess what your question might be. I still don't know exactly what is your problem.
Best regards
Early the next morning I quickly made a short (1 min 26 s) video, uploaded it on You Tube and then sent Dr. Zawischa the message below.
Finally, a few short hours later I received this most expressive reply: So what?
So what?! For instance, dear Dr. Zawischa, the fact that you didn't figure out that the Yellow component of the spectrum should become visible when the observation is conducted from a short distance to the source of light shows that you were probably not aware about the direct relationship that exists between the width of the spectral bands and the distance between the prism and the source of light. Or, as another example... Arghh, forget it. So what, indeed. After all, I am no longer troubled by any blatancy of the sort. "Hard to believe that so it is, today" I'm suddenly hearing myself in a quieter corner of my brain (which causes a convoluted smile on my face when I notice my instinctive placing of a comma before the last word). Ha, you're funny.
Ten years ago when I began this journey I was convinced that in a few short weeks I'll be finished writing about my understanding of optics and start laying down my vision of the subject that was closest to my heart at the time: the fundamental geometry of spacetime. Ten years later I find myself still dwelling on the subject of optics, light and colour, and without any clear idea of when I'll be able to finally dedicate my time to the spatiotemporal geometry. One could say that I haven't managed to get very far in this time. But one would be wrong. I know that. I'm the only one who can know that.
Three years ago, on the first day of 2015, I began my own foray into the subject of rainbows because I was convinced that the conventional understanding of the phenomenon had to be wrong. Two days later I became certain of it and began laying down the reasons for which I believed that. Three years on I'm still dwelling on the subject of rainbows and as yet I haven't managed to lay on the table my entire contribution to the cause. One could say that I haven't worked very hard in this time. But one would be wrong. I know that. Alternatively one could say that perhaps I haven't been very efficient, and this time one would be right. I'm a slow thinker. I know that.
We have all heard at one time or another prominent physicists saying that if you cannot express in plain language what you think you know then you don't really know. But that's only half of the story. So let me add to it the other half that I think is missing. If you cannot express in plain language what you think you know in a manner that the common thinker should understand, then you don't really know anything. Now that's what I believe. Strongly.
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Since I let the cat out of the bag in my previous post I will continue the discussion here, even though that has changed somewhat the plan I had drawn in mind a few weeks ago. (In that plan I was going to reveal the fatal problem, which I denoted as problem number 1 in that post, right at the end of my discussion about rainbows.) In view of that I will first give you a quick summary about how I have dealt in the past few months with the arguments raised by Dr. Markus Selmke against my understanding of the rainbow phenomena, and then we'll continue with our discussion from the previous post.
As I have written quite extensively in some of the more recent posts of this blog, over a period of one year or so Dr. Selmke sent me a rather significant number of (furious) emails meant to show me once and for all that I was absolutely wrong in my belief that the conventional view of rainbows (of atmospheric optics in general) was flawed. Effectively, in those emails he listed the most powerful arguments he probably deemed as being crucial in a rational assessment of the issue. On top of that, as any other good scientist, he also supplied a number of papers that he must have considered not only relevant to the topics, but also suitable for a layman like myself. In hindsight, I now take the opportunity to thank Dr. Selmke for everything he's done in that respect and at the same time to openly acknowledge that his help has proved to be most beneficial in the expansion of my overall understanding. Moreover, I want to also make good use of this opportunity in order to assure Dr. Selmke that I have taken ample time to not only examine with diligence all the literature he'd provided, but to also conduct every single experiment that was presented in that literature and stood within my capabilities. Finally, I want to let everyone who's reading these pages know that as we'll go along with our discussion in this and the following posts, I will regularly refer to and present some of the more relevant conventional experiments that I have conducted in this time, as well as many of my own, non-conventional ones.
One of the most striking things that I've discovered in my investigation of the rainbow phenomena is the preponderant reluctance of the establishment of mainstream physicists to unequivocally and unilaterally declare whether the rainbow is a real or a virtual image. One, I think, ought to be rather suspicious about such an obvious noncommittal from those who otherwise claim that the mystery of rainbows has been basically elucidated. I, for one, being a Romanian by birth and a Greek by choice, certainly am. I am so because the simple and plain truth is that the issue in question couldn't be any clearer than it actually is. To see why I say that let's take a quick look first at what Wikipedia has to say about it.
In view of the above and due to the below,
the rainbows we see in the sky are then, according to the officially reigning theory, real images. Why that conspicuous reluctance amongst the elite to take a definitive stance on this very important issue, then? Do you know why? I believe I do, but since this is not really a good time for what could easily be dismissed as mere speculation at this point I shall leave that discussion for the future. At this point, instead, I will answer the following obvious question one should ask me:
If the conventional understanding of rainbow observation is flawed, as you claim, do you have a better, assessable explanation for it?
I do.
Based on my past experience in dealing with subjective prismatic observations I designed and conducted many experiments concerned with the formation and observation of rainbows. In the rest of this post I will present a summary of the most relevant of those experiments and I will also show you some of the conclusive results I have been fortunate enough to discover in the process.
Since I had known for a long time before conducting any rainbow experiment that Newton's theory of light and colour was not quantitatively but qualitatively flawed, I was confident that any other theory based on the Newtonian optical view had inherited its innate defects and was therefore commensurately affected and vulnerable itself. I ought to perhaps mention at this point the two most significant and damaging of those defects. They are: 1) the fact that in subjective prismatic experiments the three primary spectral colours (Red, Green and Blue--henceforth RGB) do not obey Snell's Law; 2) the fact that the distribution of the spectral colours in a ray of light was invariable, precise and longitudinally ordered. Specifically now: in regard to point 1 I knew that in subjective prismatic observations R and B refract (bend) in opposite directions while G doesn't refract at all; in regard to point 2 I knew that in a ray of light the distribution of the spectral colours was always running longitudinally in a reversed formation to the typical Newtonian order of dispersion (VBGYOR instead of ROYGBV). It was because of these two major theoretical defects in Newton's theory that I believed myself of being able to identify (and probably resolve) any similar problems that are still outstanding in the conventional optics.
I began my rainbow experimentation with a basic setup, in which I used a simple source of light (in the form of a LED flashlight) to shine on a glass ball and cast the image onto a screen (wall, to be exact). With that setup I managed to obtain pretty good results, and to learn a fair bit about the rainbow phenomenon. For example I thus managed to project both the primary and the secondary rainbows on a single screen, which some conventional physicists had asserted that it was an impossibility. Another useful thing that I managed to see and learn was that in spite of the conventional belief that in certain situations the secondary rainbow cannot be seen because it is "lost" within the image of the primary rainbow the secondary rainbow is clearly visible even when it happens to be within the confines of its brother. See the photos below, which (like all other imagery I produce) have not been altered in any shape or form.
Perhaps the most insightful experiments that I carried out in my investigation were concerned with what kind of effects, if any, could be seen by the observer if the distance between the source of light and the 'raindrop' was gradually changed in either direction (meaning both increased and decreased). From those experiments I learned the most about the behaviour of light in a spherical medium. For instance, it was thus that I learned the intimate relationship that exists between the primary rainbow, the secondary one and Alexander's Dark Band.
It was thus how I also learned why the colours of the secondary rainbows are so much wider than those of the primary one.
It was also due to those experiments that I saw (with a great deal of satisfaction) that my old claim that the spectral colours are longitudinally distributed in a VBGYOR formation (from the closest to the furthest points relative to the source) was validly true.
Finally, for now, it was certainly due to those experiments that I was fortunate enough to discover that when light enters a spherical medium, like a raindrop, the rain-bows that are created in its first (front) half are also symmetrically generated in its second (back).
That's all for now, but before bidding you goodbye I'll drop below a couple of pics and invite any physicist who might stumble across this page to see if he or she can figure out how they have been done. (There are no tricks of any kind involved, I assure you.)
Personally, I find it hard to believe that the conventional theory about the rainbow phenomena has been reigning for virtually 400 years. However, having become aware over the years of how things tend to develop within the scientific establishment these days I can see quite clearly how that state of affairs managed to happen. That’s all I’m going to say on that subject here, nonetheless, for today I have far more important things to share with you. So, without any further ado, let us jump straight at the deep end into those matters.
The conventional theory concerning the rainbow phenomena is riddled with a substantial number of fallacious components, and many of them are fatal individually on their own. Today I’m going to talk about some of the most prominent of those fatally flawed parts of the reigning conventional theory, and I will try my best to be as frugal in unnecessary commentary yet, at the same time, as comprehensive as I ought to be in order to sufficiently convey my arguments for analysis and empirical verification. And now with these things being specified let me begin with what I’ll call—for obvious reasons, as you’ll see in a few moments—the problem number one.
There is one decisive problem in the reigning conventional understanding, and that problem was (on its own and in its own right) sufficient to convince me that in its current form, at the very least, is decidedly flawed. It is by no means a new problem at all, having been misused in the past at least on two other times and occasions. The decisive factor in the rainbow phenomena was first called Goethe’s ‘white wall’ supposed misunderstanding and then on a second occasion it was invoked as a valid explanation for the Newtonians’ impossible task to account for the observation that the distribution of the colours in the spectrum appears in reversed order when a so-called subjective experiment is conducted.
Now, I have written about both those occasions in the past (and in sufficient detail, in my biased opinion) so if you want, or need to understand precisely what I’m talking about) I’m afraid you’ll have to manually look for those pages—they’re somewhere on this site, rest assured. Nonetheless, here I will touch on the most salient points of the two cases I mentioned.
This problem I called earlier number 1 is not some subtle, hard to detect thing. Quite the contrary, it is an ‘in your face’ fact. And most certainly because of that it can really be expressed in just one or two sentences. So, let me try to see if I can manage to do just that.
The conventional theory of the rainbow’s causes must be flawed because if the sunlight were to travel from its origin to the observer’s eye in the conventionally known manner the observer would become instantly, literally and comprehensively blinded.
Basically that’s all there is with that problem number 1. For those who have read all the posts of this blog, you might remember my daring the conventional physicist to do exactly that when he tried so tragically to explain how the spectral colours appear in reversed order when one looks at a source of light directly through a prism. I then used real images of what such an eye will see if a real experiment of the conventional kind were to be conducted. Not only that--I also said that the observer who wants not only to just do the talk but to earnestly be just as ready to do the walk, is totally free to use any reasonable kind of light, as weak as his mind can (reasonably, remember?) conceive.
Today, on this new occasion, I will do exactly the same two things again. I will first show you a real video of what the eye of a camera sees when it is placed in the path of the conventional rainbow display conducted in a lab and then I will dare you to replace the camera's eye with your own. Simple. And as straightforward as you can get. So, who's game to do it first? I'll be eagerly waiting for your reply.
Every other day I have to use a bus and a tram and in the process pretty much dissect in two fairly even parts a good chunk of my beautiful town. The journey never bothered me, for every occasion of the sort offers me a great time to watch and think. For example, when those little trips happen to be in the mornings I watch with great care and attention how the sun, which is very generous with its time in this part of the world, mingles its usual activity with many optical displays common in a modern city of these times. Every distinct part of each of my trips offers their own kind of observational offers. For instance, the middle section of my trips is copiously dominated by a myriad of windows, balconies, terraces, etc. that usually are made out of all sorts of glasses and acrylics, which make wonderful optical objects useful to anyone truly interested in the subject of light, colour and all the other many parts in the branch of physics that deals effectively with one of its two fundamental halves. When my trips take place after dark, on the other hand, the optical displays I get consist of many more individual lights than the solitary sun and of even more optical tools to observe the nature of light and colours from many a kind of different perspectives.
Having said all that I can tell you that over a period of 12 years I have had ample time and opportunity to see how even a very lean and short-lived ray of sunlight can easily render any human eye completely blind for the entire duration of its existence as a direct connector between the two. Every such experience I have thus had was invariably very short but extraordinarily intense, ended either by a quick change of perspectives (courtesy of my relatively fast moving frame of reference) or by my distressing, instinctive need to immediately look in another direction. And that in spite of the fact that in virtually all the cases the overwhelming part of the light that eventually reaches my eye (after being refracted and/or reflected by the optical tools I mentioned) is continuing its journey in the opposite direction, through a transparent window or whatever else may happen to be. Now this is not a trivial realisation, and you--the conventional physicist--should earnestly know that.
(I forgot to mention one other telling event I am regularly fortunate to eyewitness. Towards the final part of my trip I travel through a complex of an elaborate array of shops and upmarket apartments, where the sunlight is beautifully dispersed in an amazing show of spectra. I will probably talk a little more about this in the near future, but for now what I said here should suffice.)
Finally I should also add that when it comes to looking directly with the naked eye at the sources of light and the optical tools I use in my experiments I am able to sustain a stare for quite some time, in certain cases--in spite of the obviously inherent discomfort that ensues. Also not a trivial realisation.
In the last three or four weeks I have made four videos, which I then uploaded to You Tube. Nobody's watching them, really. So? Couldn't care less. They are all called "Rainbows. Haloes" and numbered sequentially. The foursome show a visual presentation of what I have good reasons to believe as being the real story of rainbow's existence and manifestation. All four are wordless and completely non-enhanced by any kind of means. The only thing that works in their favour is the compelling picture they reveal about rainbows. (And haloes, I should also mention, in passing.)
Now, I have decided to not show any of the four on these pages. For personal reasons I don't wish to disclose. Those who may want to see them should effortlessly find them. As for those who do not I will say again "Couldn't care less, mate. Hooroo."
