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The Rainbow Bridge
Rainbows are one of nature's awe inspiring sights. Artists have used them for inspiration without always understanding the physics behind a rainbow. The painting below, "Niagara", was painted by Henry Freeman in 1873.
What is wrong with the rainbow in this picture?
Click to show the solution!
Solution
There is more than one thing wrong with this picture. I will point out the two most obvious ones here.
First the center of a rainbow always appears directly in front of the observer. A rainbow always appears opposite in the sky from the Sun and can never be viewed obliquely as in the painting.
Secondly, this is a double rainbow. In a double rainbow, the order of colors is reversed in the second rainbow.
We had more than one correct answer this month, so the winner was determined by a random drawing from among all the correct answers.