Awakenings: Rainbows and Raindrops

All across America, the world in fact, is indescribable beauty often referred to as visions of grandeur. Each day presents itself in living color with sights, sounds, even smells that tempt and tease innermost emotions. Skies may be crystal blue and cloudless, or dark and dreary with hints of an impending storm. Even within the storm lies beauty...a calm at the end of which one may be lucky enough to sight a rainbow.

Photo Credit: Barbara W. Beacham @Life in the Foothills

What awakens your senses of a forthcoming rainbow? Is it the sight of cloudy skies, the smell of oncoming rain, or the sound of raindrops pelting the earth? Perhaps lightening pierces the haziness of morning and rolling thunder disturbs the short-lived stillness of the air with news a storm is approaching.

Each sense brings on anticipation of sighting that well-known arc across the sky whose splendor boasts a colorful array of pastel hues. Have you ever taken the time to count how many colors you see in a rainbow? Is there a set number or a continuous innumerable spectrum of colors? Speaking of colors, what about Roy G. Biv...ever heard of (him)? Are the colors the same for every rainbow that comes into view?

O-o-o-o-ooh! So many questions. Why not add a couple more: What actually forms the rainbow and is there a connection of rainbows to raindrops? Afterall, the RAINbow and RAINdrops both have 'rain' in common!

Embrace the Past...

"Considering that this bow appears not only in the sky, but also in the air near us, whenever there are drops of water illuminated by the sun, as we can see in certain fountains, I readily decided that it arose only from the way in which the rays of light act on these drops and pass from them to our eyes. Further, knowing that the drops are round, as has been formerly proved, and seeing that whether they are larger or smaller, the appearance of the bow is not changed in any way, I had the idea of making a very large one, so that I could examine it better." ~Rene Descartes (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650)

Did you know?

To see a rainbow, one must have both rain and sunshine,

A ray of sunlight enters and is reflected inside a raindrop, thus breaking white sunlight into colors,

There is never a single size for water drops in rain but a mixture of many sizes and shapes,

The sun is always behind you when you face a rainbow and

The center of the circular arc of the rainbow is in the direction opposite to that of the sun.

The Rainbow

Since the beginning of time
Questions arise again and again
Like how far away
Does a rainbow start and end?

How far away are the raindrops

That capture the sunlight?

The nearest may be miles upon miles

Yet sparkle in the daylight

The rainbow is nature's gift

After the cleansing rain

Is each one unique

No two ever the same?

Can the eyes of two people
Seize the same rainbow in time?

Each observer sees different raindrops
Making each vision sublime

Size of the raindrops
Sets the color's purity
Does bigger mean brighter
The smaller less clarity?

What makes the colors
As vivid as can be?
It's all about angles and light
The colors that we see

A red band on the outer edge
A primary rainbow declares
Yet what happens when
A secondary rainbow appears?

Are the double rainbows
Mirror images of each other?
Colors of the second reverse
Complimenting one another