Q&A for How to Make a Rainbow

A rainbow is formed when white light is dispersed into its component colours which are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and indigo. You usually see a rainbow after rain or at places near a waterfall because water droplets are suspended in the air, causing sunlight to disperse.

A disc or a CD has a film that makes rainbows when in contact with strong light.

The light emitted from the sun has white light, which is actually a mixture of different colors. When the sunlight refracts with the water droplets in the air, the white light disperses in form of different colors of the spectrum.

This is called a prism.

Remember the name Roy G. Biv or the sentence Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain. Each letter in Roy G. Biv and the first letter of each word in the sentence will give you the colors in the correct order - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

Yes. You can do this using method 3 in this article, but keep in mind that the rainbow will be very small.

Yes, it can.

You need light colors to make it appear, and the black paper just absorbs the light instead of reflecting it.

It was probably just a result of the sun's reflection through a glass window or door. Either that or it was your imagination.

I think it will work with sunlight shining through, because glass can reflect a rainbow if there's sunlight.

You can make your rainbow with any colors you'd like. Real rainbows always have the same red/orange/yellow/green/blue/violet color spectrum.

Yes! Actually, water is a type of reflective surface. A rainbow should appear with your method.

It is just an optical illusion. What is perceived as a rainbow is actually just sunlight bouncing off many raindrops. So the gold at the end of a rainbow is just baloney! You’ll never get there (unfortunately).

Reflective surfaces. Like mirrors, they reflect and bend to create a rainbow.

Yes, but they need to be bright in order for you to see the rainbow easily. You should also try to aim the light source at your prism or water. If it's not bright enough or aimed properly, it will be dim and hard to see.

Spray it at an angle that catches the sunlight. Usually, it works best if you're point it upward.

Not necessarily. As long as you have light that is bright enough to reflect against whatever object you’re using, then it will work.

Light doesn't require a medium (for example, sunlight coming to earth travels in a vacuum), but can travel in a medium (for example, light passing through the atmosphere).

It's one hose at 3 positions at 3 different times. Basically, the picture tells you to adjust at an appropriate angle so you can see a rainbow.