[1718627440]

At least my mental model of color before I learned the details in physics and chemistry was that of a property of surfaces, so your explanation wouldn't have served me. I would have expected, that the light becomes blue as part of the transition from "empty space" into "air", not as part of the "flight" through the air.

[mrb]

"a property of surfaces"

You can conceptualize Rayleigh scattering exactly like you did so it doesn't conflict with my explanation: as light hits the "surface" of nitrogen and oxygen molecules, it "reflects" (scatters) blue wavelengths.

[1718627440]

I was talking about the understanding of a child, which didn't learned physics and chemistry yet, so there are also no atoms. Of course now I know about them, but at the same time, what I used to call a "surface", simple doesn't exist anymore.