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!
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