Abasketball is tossed up into the air, falls freely, and bounces from the wooden floor. from the moment after the player releases it until the ball reaches the top of its bounce, what is the smallest system for which momentum is conserved? '

Tha ball- earth/floor system.

Explanation:

The force acting on the ball is the force of gravity when ignoring air resistance. At the moment the player releases the ball, until it reaches the top of its bounce, the small system for which the momentum is conserved is the ball- floor system. The balls exerts and equal and opposite force on the floor. Here the ball hits the floor, because in any collision the momentum is conserved. Moment of the ball -floor system is conserved. Mutual gravitation bring the ball and floor together in one system. As the ball moves downwards, the earth moves upwards, although with an acceleration on the order of 1025 times smaller than that of the ball. The two objects meet, rebound and separate.

8 meters above the spring

scattering of light by tiny particles in air to produce the colors we see on sky, is dependent on the following factors:

(i) wavelength of light

(ii) size of the scattering particle  

(iii) distance traveled by light through the atmosphere.

according to rayleigh's law of scattering, the amount of scattering is inversely proportional to the fourth power of its wavelength. shorter the wavelength, greater is its scattering. hence violet/blue light is scattered more than red.

sun's light is a composite light ( visible light) with wavelengths in the range 400 nm (violet) to 700 nm (red). as sunlight passes through our atmosphere, the molecules of air scatter light according to their wavelengths. during sunrise and sunset, the sun's position is below the horizon. hence light from the sun travels a greater distance in the atmosphere when compared to its position a noon.

as sunlight enters the earth's atmosphere, blue light is scattered away and at the end of its journey in the sky, only red and orange wavelengths remain in the beam.

hence at sunrise and sunset, the sky appears reddish orange.