Cooking With a Spectrum of Colors
Jadyn Walsh
Award: Top 100
School: flintridge sacred heart academy
Teacher: siera kozakar
Category: Natural
Photo #19223
Cooking With a Spectrum of Colors
This photo captures a moment where physics shines through in everyday life. While cutting cucumbers near a sunlit window, a vivid rainbow appeared on the knife blade and surrounding vegetables. This phenomenon begins with refraction. As sunlight passes from air into the window glass, it slows down and bends. Sunlight is made up of a spectrum of colors, and each color bends by a slightly different amount due to its unique wavelength. This separation of light into its component colors is called dispersion, which creates the rainbow spectrum.
Once the dispersed light passes through the window, it strikes the reflective surface of the knife. This introduces reflection. The smooth metal blade acts like a mirror, reflecting the rainbow clearly across its surface. You can also observe the rainbow casting hues onto the chopped cucumbers.
Interestingly, the rainbow appears more green when reflected on the cucumber. Cucumbers appear green because they absorb most wavelengths of visible light and reflect green. So when the full spectrum of white light hits the cucumber, only the green wavelengths are reflected back to our eyes, making the rainbow appear tinted.
Beautiful displays of physics are seen all around us. Even when chopping vegetables!
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