A few months ago my daughter asked another of her perceptive
questions. After asking why the sky is blue, and recieving an
explanation, she quickly followed up with a questions about why sunrises
and sunsets are red.
I'd been ready with an answer for
the first, but not the second and then it quickly turned out that my
answer to the first wasn't sufficiently thorough. The answers related to
the wavelengths of red and blue light being at opposite ends of the
visible spectrum, and the way that light of shorter wavelengths gets
more easily diffused as it travels through the atmosphere.
However,
blue isn't at the end of the spectrum, violet is. So that should be
diffused more in the sky. The sky shouldn't be blue during the day ...
it should be violet. Why isn't it?
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