Question about How Many Colors in a Rainbow? activity

[valbooth11]

Type your question below and then press Submit!

Will this activity work indoors, if done with a flashlight or lamp?

Thanks!



-------------------------------------
Leave this to help the Experts:
The activity can be viewed at: How Many Colors in a Rainbow?

[brbarnes]

I do not see any major reason that you could not perform the experiment with a strong lamp or flashlight. I do have to stress that the light source needs to be particularly strong (LED strength) and the room should have no other obscuring light sources.

[bfinio]

Hi - adding that you might get different results with this activity depending on the type of light bulb you use (incandescent, CFL, or LED). Each type of bulb emits a different spectrum of light. If you search online you will see a bunch of graphs like this:

https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... 79&dpr=1.5

this image shows a nice comparison of all three bulb types vs sunlight:

https://www.sunlightinside.com/wp-conte ... 24x295.jpg

Note how flourescent in particular has very narrow peaks at certain colors. So, for example - while I have not tried this myself - green might appear much more prominent than red if you do this with a flourescent bulb. If you use incandescent, red might be more prominent; if you use an LED, blue might be more prominent. Point being, the experiment should "work" but you will not get exactly the same results you would with natural sunlight.