How many colors are in the rainbow? What colors in the rainbow

Bright, cheerful, luminous rainbow since ancient times was considered a symbol of luck and luck. If the rainbow flashes in the sky, then the day will be happy and easy. And some even make a wish when they see this beautiful phenomenon of nature in the sky. It is considered how many colors a person sees in a rainbow, so many desires he can make.

What is a rainbow

Rainbow - this is an optical phenomenon, which occurs not only in the sky. In fact, this is the refraction of colors. Physicists have proved that light has a certain range of shades, and the rainbow clearly demonstrates this.

It arises from the refraction of light in the smallest droplets of mist or rain water that soar in the atmosphere. Light differs in different ways in droplets of water, hence different shades emerge.

Where it is observed

Rainbow can be observed not only in the sky. You can see a small rainbow if you sit next to a fountain and catch the refraction of light near a stream of water. You can see it on a white sheet of paper, when you write with a transparent pen on a sunny day. You can also see a rainbow through a prism, if you bring this prism to the sun's rays or to a normal electric light bulb.

But most often, of course, we observe it in the sky.

How many colors are in the rainbow

Science has proven that the rainbow has seven colors. It:

• red;
• Orange;
• yellow;
• green;
• blue;
• blue;
• purple.

In antiquity, there were not so many precise optical instruments yet to carefully consider how many colors a rainbow has. And the human eye can not always accurately determine the color gamut.

Aristotle, for example, distinguished only three primary colors - red, yellow and green. But in the Japanese culture there is no traditional green color, so the people of the Land of the Rising Sun believe that there are only six colors in the rainbow.

A great mathematician Isaac Newton devoted much time to studying the refraction of light and came to the conclusion that there are five colors in the rainbow. Then he considered the sixth one, the orange one. This number - six - seemed to him imperfect for describing the phenomena of nature, so he decided to add a blue color to the rainbow, which he called "indigo."

We have 7 and they have 6

If you think that after the proven fact of scientists, how many colors in the rainbow, all people on the planet agreed with this statement, then you are deeply mistaken. In China, for some reason, believe that the colors in the rainbow are five - exactly the same as the elements on the planet. Until now, in Germany, America, England, France and a number of other countries, children are told that the rainbow consists of six colors.

Why is this happening? The fact is that blue and blue colors are very similar to each other, they are only distinguishable by the degree of depth. In addition, in a number of languages, "blue" and "blue" are called identically. In English there is only one common word for describing these colors. Therefore, until now, there is such confusion as the colors in the rainbow.

Remember simply

The order of the colors in the rainbow is always unchanged, no matter in which part of the world we observe it and at what time of the day, whether large or small, stood for a long time in the sky or flared up and went out in a few seconds. The first color is red, which gradually becomes lighter and turns into orange. In turn, the orange becomes even lighter and turns into yellow. The yellow color gradually turns green, then a blue appears, which turns into juicy blue, and the last, final color of the rainbow spectrum is purple.

Remember the order of colors in the rainbow is quite simple. You only need to learn one mnemonic phrase - and you can easily name what flowers are in the rainbow, without a pause. So, memorize this sentence: "Every Hunter Wants to Know Where Pheasant Sits". Simply and easily. And now you only need to take the first letter of each word and name the color of the rainbow:

• Each is red;
• Hunter - orange;
• Desires - yellow;
• Know - green;
• Where - blue;
• Sits - blue;
• Pheasant - purple.

It is this phrase about the hunter and the sitting pheasant that has taken root in the Russian-speaking culture. Although there are several more successful proposals that allow you to remember the rainbow spectrum. For example: "Once upon a time, Jean Zvonar the City broke the Lantern." There were also more modern interpretations: "Every Designer Wishes to Know Where to Download Photoshop".

Well, it's already, as they say, to choose your taste, how to remember the arrangement of colors in the rainbow.

Warm or cold

The rainbow on the horizon always seems bright, cheerful, lively and very warm. It shines and sparkles and it seems that everything consists of fiery flowers. But, nevertheless, there are also cold tones in it.

Let's see how many cool colors in the rainbow. Everything that is related to blue, refers to cold tones. Thus, the rainbow has three cool colors - blue, blue and green. But purple, which has shades of purple, do not refer to either warm or cold tones, it is transitional.

Accordingly, and the warm colors of the rainbow are three: red, orange and yellow.

This palette, which divides colors into warm and cold, is used by artists and painters. There are even a few color circles that divide the solar spectrum into warm, cold and intermediate shades.

Always against the sun

The rainbow always appears on the opposite side of the sun. Therefore, if you look at it, the sun will always shine from behind. Most often the rainbow appears in the morning or in the evening, and this too has a quite reasonable explanation from the point of view of physics. When the sun is on the horizon, the rainbow is the fullest and largest. The higher the sun rises, the less the semicircle becomes. And when the luminary rises to a height of 43 degrees relative to the horizon, it is impossible to consider the rainbow. Because the angle for refraction of light is inappropriate.

The red color of the rainbow is always located in the outer part of the arc, and the violet in the inner part. But! Very often there is a double rainbow, when there are two arcs in the sky. So, in the second rainbow, colors have the opposite layout.

By the way, to see two rainbows is considered even more good luck than one.

Interesting facts about the rainbow

The number of colors in the rainbow always remains unchanged, but the ideas about this beautiful optical phenomenon in people have changed over time. Ancient tribes, for example, divided the rainbow into two colors - dark and light.

Rainbow can be seen not only in the sunlight, but also after the darkness. Then the sun's rays begin to reflect from the moon, and a rainbow can arise.

The rainbow does not freeze in place, but two people who are in different parts of the city will see it in a completely different way. One will feel that it is hanging over the river, and the other - that it is located directly above the new buildings. That's why when you take photos of the rainbow in the same city at the same time, you get completely different pictures.

Not all people can see all seven colors of the rainbow. It depends how sharp your vision is. Some may notice in the rainbow shades of pink, peach, light green. And they do not invent. After all, seven colors are the main classical colors. And the shades in the rainbow are really great, and some can not be caught with the human eye.

Rainbow can disappear if you wear glasses with polaroid glasses. The coverage of these glasses is located so that the light refracts vertically and the person simply does not see what the others see.