Verified Solution Science The Human Eye and the Colourful World

Why do raindrops cause dispersion of white light to form a rainbow, but air bubbles in water do not produce a similar visible spectrum?

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Raindrops cause dispersion because they act as tiny prisms, refracting and dispersing sunlight due to their convex shape. Air bubbles in water, on the other hand, act as diverging lenses (concave lenses). When light passes through an air bubble in water, it undergoes dispersion, but due to the diverging nature, the dispersed colours spread out and do not form a focused, visible spectrum like that from a prism or convex shape of a water droplet.

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