Future Technology: Why Is the Sky Blue?

By: Tsegazeab Beteselassie

Why Is the Sky Blue?
Source: gizmodo.com

Why is the sky blue? I'm pretty sure that when you were a child,you asked your parents that (I certainly did). And maybe they muttered something about the refraction of light and prisms and the colors of the rainbow. And when you searched it on Google, you got the exact same thing. You probably didn't, but still. And just maybe, you are still wondering why the sky is blue and not a different color. So you went to my blog to find out the answer. And so, now you want to know why it's blue. So, instead of wasting your time, I'll tell you right away. The light bounces off the air molecules and produce a visible effect of a multitude of colors, but since the blue light's wavelength is shorter than the others, then it'll scatter by a complex formula that goes like:

Or something like it. Didn't understand that? Time to go into deeper explanation.

*The following thought experiment is not true. Please do not try this in real life. Seriously.*

So let's say you're a beam of light. You're just traveling down earth, minding your own business, when you suddenly bump into an air particle and bounce off him. Then, you bounce off another one. And another. And another. And another! You're flying in all directions, each "bump" sending you on a different trajectory. And since you are a beam of light, you know that you are made of seven different colors; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. When you're bouncing around like that, then the seven colors start to be shaken off you. Or, more accurately, you are splitting into pieces. Since your red light waves are the longest, they will be scattered less, and there is relatively few of them in the sky. And the lower in the spectrum you get, the more scattered the light gets until it reaches blue, which is so scattered it fills up the whole sky.

So now you know why the sky is blue.

So why isn't the sky violet?