How to make a rainbow in 1 minute

You don't always need rain to see a rainbow!

Warn­ing! Only un­der adult su­per­vi­sion

Equip­ment

  • deep bowl;
  • wa­ter;
  • plas­ticine;
  • mir­ror;
  • flash­light;
  • white pa­per.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Fix a small mir­ror in a deep bowl at a slight an­gle and fill the bowl with wa­ter. Shine a flash­light on the mir­ror and “catch” the re­sult­ing rain­bow on a piece of pa­per!

Sci­en­tif­ic de­scrip­tion

White light con­sists of all the col­ors of the rain­bow. When it hits wa­ter at an an­gle to the sur­face, it is re­fract­ed. Ev­ery col­or of light has its own an­gle of re­frac­tion, so white light is sep­a­rat­ed into its con­stituent col­ored rays. These rays are then re­flect­ed from the mir­ror, hit­ting the sheet of pa­per where you can ob­serve a rain­bow!

Cool ex­per­i­ments are wait­ing for you in the MEL Sci­ence sub­scrip­tion!

Try it