Understanding Rayleigh Scattering: The Science Behind the Blue Sky

[thunderhadron]

Hi friends,
I am confuse in Rayleigh scattering formula.
It says that the intensity of the light corresponding to a wavelength in the scatterd light varies inversely as the fourth power of the wavelength.
Hence the blue light scatters more then red light. Hence the sky seems blue. But the wavelength of violet is more less then blue so why not violet?

 

[yenchin]

It has to do with how human vision works. You can google this and find e.g.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/BlueSky/blue_sky.html
where the violet question is discussed. By the way, you might be interested in the book "Sky in a Bottle".

 

[dipstik]

It has to do with the spectrum of the sun. There is less violet light being emitted form the sun than blue.

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~korista/sun-images/solar_spec.jpg