History of the Rainbow

Abstract

The historical backdrop of the rainbow is as old as that of science. The old Greek rationalists attempted to describe the rainbow, and Aristotle was the first to completely incorporate it among the wonders concentrated by physicists. Sunlight reflected in the mists, the occurrence of light beams, the reason for the rainbow's roundabout shape, the optical impact of an infinite profundity are perspectives that have for quite a long time intrigued researchers, who contemplated the rainbow with a mixture science and speculative chemistry, instinct and reason. In the 17thcentury the rainbow turned into a carefully physical phenomenon, the object of thorough examinations concurring to the law of reflection and refraction. Here we overview this often failed to remember history, from old Greeks to modern scientists, the rainbow's tones having a place with the world of physics yet additionally—as Thomas Young wrote in 1803—to the world of theory and creative mind.