Why are the colours in rainbows in separate lines?
In: 96
This has a pretty interesting answer I think!
It is because of _our brains_ and _language_.
You see, colors do not actually exist. What we perceive as colors are just different wavelengths of light.
We don’t have to go into what wavelengths are, just see them as a quality light has that can differ.
Eyes evolved to see a certain spectrum of light. That means a certain slice of all wavelengths light can have, the rest is invisible to us; like radio waves or x-rays!
The human brain evolved to divide this visible light so we can make out subtle differences, most likely like seeing a tiger in the grass, this is the sensation of color.
So actually, rainbows are just a gradient of wavelengths, but we _perceive_ that as individual colors.
But the weird thing is, just _how_ individual they are perceived to be seems to be closely linked to _language_.
Some languages only have three words for all colors: red, black and white. What seems like blue to you, a native speaker of that language might say is black. What you say is purple they might say is red.
Some languages have four colors and so on.
English, not counting hues, _generally_ has 6 main colors. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, (indigo), violet. Does that ring a bell?
That’s the colors the rainbow is said to have in English (and many other languages). Isn’t it strange and kind of awesome?
Latest Answers