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Columbia Encyclopedia entry: rainbow

Rainbow, arc showing the colors of the spectrum, violet inside and red outside, which appears when the sun shines through water droplets. It often appears while the sun is shining after a brief thundershower in the late afternoon or on fog layers. The sun, the observer's eye, and the center of the arc must be aligned—the rainbow appears in the part of the sky opposite the sun. The rainbow is an arc of 180° if the sun is at the horizon, and it cannot appear if the sun is high in the sky. It is caused by the refraction and reflection of rays from the sun on a sheet of water droplets. The light is refracted as it enters the sphere of the individual water drop, then is reflected from the drop's opposite side, and is again refracted as it leaves the drop and passes to the observer's eye. When conditions are suitable, a double rainbow may be seen; a larger, paler, secondary rainbow with colors reversed (red inside) outside the primary arc is caused by two refractions and two reflections of the ray while it is inside a drop. The rainbows of mist, lawn spray, and spray from a waterfall are similarly caused. The lunary rainbow, seen much less often, is usually observable soon after dark following a brief summer storm or shower when the moon is nearly full. Aristotle was first to devote serious attention to the rainbow, but his mistaken explanation of it misled thinkers for centuries. Descartes in the 17th cent. also attempted to account for the phenomenon but the correct explanation of it could not be furnished until the physics of light and its reflection and refraction were understood and the spectrum explained. In religion and art the rainbow symbolizes God's promise of mercy to mankind after the Deluge (Gen. 9.13). The Greeks and Romans called the rainbow the sign of Iris, messenger of the gods. The Inca and other Native Americans regarded the rainbow as a gift from the sun-god. There are fairy tales of searches for the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow.

See R. Greenler, Rainbows, Halos, and Glories (1990).

Wikipedia search results for: Rainbow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. They take the form of a multicoloured arc, with red on the outer part of the arch and violet on the inner section of the arch. A rainbow spans a continuous spectrum of colours; the discrete bands are an artefact of human colour vision. The most commonly cited and remembered sequence, in English, is Newton's sevenfold red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Rainbows can be caused by other forms of water than rain, including mist, spray, and dew. Rainbows can be...more »

Columbia Encyclopedia search results: rainbow

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Rainbow Division
Rainbow Division, nickname of the 42d Division of the U.S. army. The first U.S. combat division to arrive in France in World War I, it participated in the second battle of the Marne, fought in...
Rainbow Bridge National Monument
Rainbow Bridge National Monument, 160 acres (65 hectares), S Utah; est. 1910. Rainbow Bridge, the largest natural bridge in the world, is a symmetrical, pink, sandstone arch, 309 ft (94 m) hig...
Iris, in Greek mythology
Iris, in Greek mythology, goddess of the rainbow; daughter of Electra and Thaumas. She was often represented as a messenger of Zeus and Hera.
Asgard
Asgard, in Norse mythology, home of the gods, also known as Aesir. It consisted of luxurious palaces and halls, in which the gods (whose chief was Odin) dwelled, conferred, and banqueted. One ...
Lang, Pearl
Lang, Pearl, 1922–, American dancer and choreographer, b. Chicago. Lang was a soloist with Martha Graham's company (1942–52) before forming her own company in 1952. As a dancer and choreograph...
killifish
Killifish, northern representative, especially the genus Fundulus, of the Cyprinodontidae or toothed minnows, a family that includes also the topminnows and many popular aquarium fishes (e.g.,...
Ausable Chasm
Ausable Chasm, gorge, 2 mi (3.2 km) long, from 20 to 50 ft (6–15 m) wide, from 100 to 200 ft (30–61 m) deep, NE N.Y. The chasm, with its rapids, waterfalls, and curious rock formations, is a p...
Cain, James Mallahan
Cain, James Mallahan, 1892–1977, American novelist, b. Annapolis, Md., grad. Washington College, 1910. He taught journalism (1924–25) and wrote political commentaries for the New York World (1...
Sisley, Alfred
Sisley, Alfred, 1839–99, French impressionist landscape painter, b. Paris, of English parents. He studied under Corot, Gleyre, and Courbet and was (1873) a founding member of the Impressionist...
Electra
Electra, in Greek mythology. 1 Daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. After her mother and Aegisthus murdered Agamemnon, Electra, eager for revenge, longed only for the return of her brother,...

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