My toddler asked me "how does rainbow happen", and I would like to give a pedagogical explanation of the relation of photon frequency, its color, and the way different frequencies are bent in a drop of water.
However, I wouldn't want to create the wrong mental image, so I'd like it to be a "closest to correct" explanation, without invoking any math. So I thought we do something like this using crayons:
Fig.1 Poorly drawn waveforms representing photons with frequencies from red to violet
But is there a "toddler intuitive" explanation of dispersion without math (i.e. without the need for Snell's law)? I am aware the photon is absorbed and re-emitted several times, so this process simply works a bit "slower" for higher frequencies?