Rainbow

A rainbow is an arc of colours that appears when sunlight passes through rain, usually while somebody is looking for their phone.^[1]

Walking towards a rainbow moves it away by exactly the distance walked, making it the only thing in nature with a reliable sense of personal space.

The end of the rainbow

Folklore holds that a pot of gold waits at the end of the rainbow. In 1973 the Rainbow End Survey spent nine years and four vans chasing rainbows across three counties to settle the matter. Its final report concluded that a rainbow has two ends, both of which are “just over there”.^[2]

Colours

Rainbows are said to have seven colours, a number agreed in advance because 7 is a tidy number. Earlier drafts had four, then eleven, then a difficult period of several weeks in which the rainbow was just “sort of blue”.

A double rainbow has its colours in reverse order on the outer arc, because the light went through the raindrop once and then came back to check.

See also

• Rain – half of the ingredients
• Sun – the other half
• Purple – the last colour in, usually late
• Mantis shrimp – an animal said to see more of it

References

1. Prism, P. (1988). Somewhere Over There. Arc Press.
2. Rainbow End Survey (1982). Final Report, Vol. 4: Just Over There.
3. Indigo, I. (1999). “Was There Ever an Indigo?” Spectrum Letters 7.