What is Shortwave visible light?

Shortwave visible light is like the bright colors you see when sunlight shines through a prism and splits into a rainbow.

Imagine you're playing with a toy that has different colored lights, red, blue, green, and yellow. Each color is a kind of light, and shortwave visible light is just one type of these colorful lights. It's like the red light from your favorite toy car or the blue glow of a night-light.

Think of light as tiny waves traveling through the air. Some waves are long, like the slow ripples you make in a pond. Others are short, like the quick splash when you flick your finger in water. Shortwave visible light has these short waves, they're so quick that we can only see them when they’re shining brightly, like the colors in a rainbow.

When sunlight hits something like rain or a prism, these shortwaves bend and spread out, making all the pretty colors you see. That's how rainbows happen, nature’s own toy with light!