Explore rainbows!
Controls
- Choosing a rainbow
- Primary checkbox enables the primary bow and its light rays
- Secondary checkbox enables the secondary bow and its
light rays
- Unchecking both when in Rain Curtain Mode will show
both bows -- but no light rays.
- Picking a display mode
- Rain Curtain mode shows two parallel light rays (beams) from the sun
refracting off a raindrop at the both the top and bottom of the rain
curtain
- Multi-drop mode shows three parallel light rays refracting off
three raindrops at different altitudes
- Single drop mode shows the path inside a single drop
- Note that primary or secondary bows may be used with each
mode
- Dragging the mouse pointer around
- Drag the sun around (top and right side) to change the angle of
the parallel light rays from the sun and simulate a time-of-day
- Drag the person back and forth to see the effect of observer
distance from the rain
- When in multi-drop mode drag the refracting drops up and
down
This applet is Copyright(c) 2005 by Tom Whittaker. Some illustrations
Copyright(c) 2004 S.V. Medaris, used by permission.