1

According to wikipedia,

A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets...

Given that we require reflection, refraction and dispersion to take place, I was quite intrigued when I saw that the reflection of light on the TV has scattered into a rainbow.

enter image description here This is how the light looks like: enter image description here

Can somebody explain this phenomenon?

Also the shape of the light in the reflection seems interesting, reminds me of interference patterns. I mean the light source is simply circular in shape. Any comments on that?

Qmechanic
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hb20007
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2 Answers2

3

I think the regular pattern of pixels in your LCD screen acts like a diffraction grating, almost like the surface of a CD. I'm not suggesting that it is the pixels themselves but perhaps some finer, repetitive structure.

lionelbrits
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1

There is glass there and probably many other materials that disperse the light, a high percentage of light gets reflected not in the surface but in a deeper zone, therefore the ligth will come across different layers of materials, suffering from refraction and dispersion.

manuel91
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