Daniel Takanishi September 23, 2013

Rainbow Lab
Background: As we know, the color spectrum of a rainbow is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. So how can we create all of those colors of the rainbow by using only three of the colors? We are going to be using the primary colors of light and they are red, blue, and yellow. These additional colors can be combined together and form the color of white. Could they form another color of the rainbow? Lets take a deeper look into the color spectrum of the rainbow. Hypothesis: I believe that you can make all of the colors of the rainbow by only the three primary colors which are red, blue, and yellow. The reason why I think this is because I have learned that you can mix those colors and make a different color. For example, if you mix yellow and blue together, you can make the color green. Another example is that if you mix the color of red and blue, you get the color of purple. Mixing light is a little different than mixing paints though. If you mix all of the primary colors of light together, you can create white which is all the colors of the rainbow. The color of light is called additional color. The additional color is much different than the subtractive color of paint, but in this case since we are on the subject of light, I think my hypothesis is correct. Procedure: We used a data table to find out if my hypothesis is correct. We first pour our colorful water into our test tubes, one test tube filled with red, another filled with yellow, and another filled with blue colored water. After we did that, we started mixing the colored water into other test tubes. We have mixed red and yellow and that made orange. We mixed yellow and blue and that made green. We lastly mixed red and blue and that made purple. But we didnt only have to mix any kind of amount into the test tube. We had to measure precisely the amount that was directed to us to get the right color.

Data table Test Tube A B C D E F Total= Analysis: The new colors that have been created are orange, green, and purple. In the beginning we filled each test tube with different amounts of liquid because each of the different liquid had a different tone. In test tube A, had filled it up to 17mL of red liquid. In test tube C we had filled the test tube with 11mL of yellow liquid, and in test tube E, we have filled it with 13mL of blue liquid. If we didnt follow these directions, the color of our result wouldnt come out to the right tone, and thats why it is important to follow directions. In the end of our lab, we had gotten a total of 40.9mL of all the liquids combined. Our target was to get 41mL, but we were pretty accurate with our measurements. Conclusion: The colors red, yellow, and blue can make all the colors of the rainbow. After all the data, we have computed that with the right amount of liquid you can make a rainbow with the primary colors. We were very accurate in our total of all the liquid combined, but there is always room for human error. Luckily, that didnt interrupt our experiment, but in the future we know that we will need to be more accurate. This rainbow lab has taught us how to measure, and find the result of our hypothesis. Color of liquid Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Purple A-F Amount of liquid (mL) 2.5mL 10.8mL 4.2mL 9.5mL 3mL 10.9mL 40.9mL