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| AI image created on request using Bing Image Creator |
"Richard
of York Gave Battle in Vain" or ROYGBIV was the mnemonic we used in
school to remember the seven colours of the rainbow: Red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. But did you know there aren't
actually seven colours? Isaac Newton, the 17th century scientist decided
to add another colour because "7" was a perfect and divine number (God
made the world in seven days, there were seven known objects in the
Solar System, seven musical notes on a scale etc). So he added the
seventh colour, indigo, whereas there are actually only six. Rainbows
are composed of a continuous variation of spectral wavelengths from
short to long as white light is bent or refracted, and "smeared" or dispersed
by differing angles depending on wavelength as it passes from air
through a different medium such as glass or water. The apparent colours
are in the eye of the beholder simply because we have cones for red,
blue and green in our eyes. Mantis shrimps have many more than three
types of cones in their eyes than us, and would see more than six
colours in a rainbow.
AI image created on request using Bing Image Creator