Rainbow

A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a nearly continuous spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the sun shines onto falling rain. It is a multicoloured arc with red on the outside and violet on the inside. The full sequence of colours is most commonly cited as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, though it is important to note that this is an inconsistent list; all primary and secondary colors are present in some form, but only one tertiary. It is commonly thought that indigo was included due to the different religious connotations of the numbers six and seven at the time of Isaac Newton's work on light, despite its lack of scientific significance and the poor ability of humans to distinguish colors in the blue portion of the visual spectrum.

Rainbows in literature

The rainbow has also been used in more contemporary settings, such as the song "Over the Rainbow" in the musical film The Wizard of Oz, and in selling Lucky Charms by alluding heavily to leprechaun mythology.

Related Topics:
The Wizard of Oz - Lucky Charms - Leprechaun

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One of the poems of William Wordsworth goes...

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:My heart leaps up when I behold

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::A rainbow in the sky:

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:So was it when my life began;

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:So is it now I am a man;

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:So be it when I shall grow old,

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::Or let me die!...

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However, the Newtonian deconstruction of the rainbow is said to have provoked John Keats to lament....

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:Do not all charms fly

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:At the mere touch of cold philosophy?

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:There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:

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:We know her woof, her texture; she is given

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:In the dull catalogue of common things.

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:Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings,

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:Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,

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:Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine -

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:Unweave a rainbow

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In contrast to this is Richard Dawkins; talking about his book Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder .....

Related Topics:
Richard Dawkins - Unweaving the Rainbow

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"My title is from Keats, who believed that Newton had destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to the prismatic colours. Keats could hardly have been more wrong, and my aim is to guide all who are tempted by a similar view, towards the opposite conclusion. Science is, or ought to be, the inspiration for great poetry."

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Science merely explains the phenomena though; it doesn't create it.

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