Frazz by Jef Mallett for July 28, 2013

When I lived in Oregon (where it rains a lot) I’d always be on the alert for when the sun was shining into falling rain. I’d put the sun at my back and look for the rainbow. Sometimes it would be so gorgeous and intense, I’d pull my car over to the side of the road and just drink in the beauty until it faded. Sadly, the ones I’ve seen in CA aren’t the same.

I’m lucky enough to live on a lake, and there was a rainbow one time, (I have a photo), it came down in front of the hills on the other shore….That meant that it was only 400 feet away, maybe a little more…. I always thought that rainbows were high in the sky…But I should have known better, because I always like to make rainbows with the garden hose on wide spray when I’m watering something…….

I’m a teacher, but not a science teacher, but I have come up with an illustration that helps to understand particle/wave theory…..Put that garden hose on a narrow stream, and move it back and forth. It looks like the stream becomes a wave pattern. But every drop is going in a straight line, except for gravity…

In 1984, I saw, on TV, “The Wave” go around Tiger Stadium, lower deck and upper deck in opposite directions..Awesome!.But seriously, the perceived movement from left or right was really individuals standing up and sitting down…Particle or wave? Or both?

Love the artwork.

I remember seeing a double rainbow on my aunt’s wedding day as a little kid. I was probably about six at the time and it’s one of the few memories I have from that day because it was so beautiful and so wonderful, and what a perfect day for that to happen. we all walked outside and there it was, this beautiful, really clear double rainbow. I can’t remember seeing another one until a few months ago, on my way home from work. it wasn’t nearly so clear as that one I remember from all those years ago, but even so, they are a sight.

When I was 13 we moved from Des Moines, Iowa to the Canary Islands. The weather on the drive to the East Coast was miserable: thunder, pouring rain. Then, late afternoon on the 2nd day out, the weather started to clear, and a beautiful full double rainbow arced right in front of our road. I made me think things couldn’t be too bad.

And for those of you that haven’t noticed, on the double rainbows, the colors are reversed. I am regularly surprised at the number of folks that don’t know that.

Jef Mallett did a lot better on the science in this strip than most science journalists or textbook writers do. Bravo!

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The analogies given for wave-particle duality in the comments are sadly lacking, though. When we speak of wave-particle duality, we’re not talking about the particles that comprise the medium the wave is passing through: We mean particles that actually are the wave itself. Thus, for instance, the speed of the particles are the same as the speed of the wave, and if the wave stops waving, the particles cease to exist.

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And I don’t know about rainbows in Oregon, but I’ve seen some absolutely amazing ones in Montana. They’re often near sunset, so reach nearly 180 degrees, and almost always include a full primary and secondary, plus often anticrepuscular rays ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticrepuscular_rays ).

I suspect Montana enjoys great and frequent rainbows for much the same reason your neighbour to the north (Alberta) does – frequent late-day summer thundershowers form on the lee side of the Rockies, and then as they move east, sun returns low in the sky to shine on the receding showers as they move across the plains – ideal conditions.

Sounds like Calvin’s dad

How do you pronounce “shaka”?

I saw a double rainbow at college in Montana once. The upper arc was fainter than the lower one. =) It seemed like every Japanese student there had to go out and have their picture taken under it.

Another time there I also saw the most intense rainbow I’ve ever seen in my life. It almost looked solid the colors were so vivid. I watched until they began to fade both times.

As a Firefighter, one of the cool things to see is a Deck Gun Rainbow. We see them a lot during training. When water is put out of the deck gun at 1200 gallons/minute, the side-mist can make an awesome rainbow in the evening sun. I have some great pics of them.

In Va, double rainbows appear fairly frequently. Our mountains aren’t very high, but they are high enough to cause a rain shadow on their eastern flank.Frequently, when storms will come in from the west, they sort of bounce. Rain misses certain places in the Piedmont.We will have bright sunshine and it will be pouring east of us, often forming double rainbows.Yes, they have reversed colors,usually with one rainbow brighter than the other.What fascinates me is the color between the two rainbows…silver green and shimmery, like hummingbird wings.

I used to see double rainbows when I was in Pennsylvania, over the gentle hills of Amish farmland. In Arizona I used to stand in the hot sun, or under bright stars, and watch lightning and pouring rain some distance away across the flat land. And once in Maryland, in the middle of the day, I saw a rainbow that completely circled the sun. These all gave me a feeling of deep peace, a rare experience for me.

Computer rainbows? They’re beautiful and varied, but, even though they’re only inches from your face, they’re distant. You see them, but they’re someone else’s experiences. You don’t feel connected to them, a part of them, the way you do when you can almost touch each other in the same space and time.

Very profound. Experience life.

here in the mountains of colorado(estes park), we are blessed with double and sometimes a triple rainbows!

Saw something I’d never thought I’d see: Three rainbows visible at once! (Bellingham must be at the end of all the rainbows.)

I’ve always liked the circular ones you can often see from an airliner window.

And there’s often the airplane shadow right in the middle of it.

Was watering my lawn the other day, and generated my own private little rainbow. No pot of gold, though.

wow. I have little idea what he just said. I guess I will look into,,weather, or math+weather.

Well said. You don’t need religion to give you that sense of wonder. Knowing the real truth behind how this stuff works makes these things even more spectacular.

I read that all rainbows are circular, but we are rarely in a position to see the full circle. Viewing from an airplane would be one way.

I aw that too, but it was in a cloud that was slanted, coming down a mountain.

Nicely evolved sense of esthetics (that’s a joke… see The Reason for God by Timothy Keller).

I actually saw a rainbow the other day, when the sun was quite a bit higher, and the rainbow was very low, less than 15 degrees of arc from end to end. I was expecting that, so it was there where I looked. Also once saw a moonbow, under similar conditions. The entire bow was way below me, but I was high and there was a long view to the mist below me. That was stunning, and I did come home and google moonbow, just to check that others knew that they did exist.

Everyone is talking about rainbows, but nobody seems to notice the wonderful description of science in the center panel! I may have to get a print of this one…