How many colors does the rainbow have? All the colors of the rainbow in order for children, schoolchildren: the correct sequence and names of colors. What color does the rainbow start with? How many cold and warm colors are in the rainbow? How to quickly remember the colors of the rainbow

As it turned out, not all nations have 7 colors in the rainbow. Some have six, in particular in America, and there are those who have only 4. In general, the question is not at all simple, as it might seem at first glance

And as often happens on the vast expanses of the Internet, there was an article on this topic. It was written so interestingly that I could not resist and decided to republish it on my site so that everyone could get acquainted with it.

The phrase "every hunter wants to know where the pheasant sits" has been known to everyone since childhood. This mnemonic device, the so-called acrophonic memorization method, is designed to memorize the sequence of colors of the rainbow. Here, each word of the phrase begins with the same letter as the color name: each = red, hunter = orange, and so on. In the same way, those who at first were confused in the sequence of colors Russian flag, realized that the abbreviation KGB (from bottom to top) was suitable for its description and was no longer confused.
Such mnemonics are assimilated by the brain rather at the level of the so-called "conditioning", and not just learning. Considering that people, like all other animals, are terrible conservatives, then any information hammered into the head from childhood is very difficult for many to change or even simply blocked from a critical approach. For example, Russian children know from school that there are seven colors in the rainbow. This is jagged, familiar, and many sincerely wonder how it happens that in some countries the number of colors of the rainbow can be completely different. But the seemingly undoubted statements “there are seven colors in the rainbow”, as well as “24 hours in a day” are only products of human imagination, which have nothing to do with nature. One of those cases when arbitrary fiction becomes "reality" for many.

The rainbow has always been seen differently in different periods history and in different nations. It distinguished three primary colors, and four, and five, and as many as you like. Aristotle singled out only three colors: red, green, purple. Rainbow Serpent Australian aborigines was six colors. In the Congo, the rainbow is represented by six snakes - according to the number of colors. Some African tribes see only two colors in the rainbow - dark and light.

So where did the infamous seven colors in the rainbow come from? This is just the rare case when the source is known to us. Although the phenomenon of the rainbow was explained by the refraction of sunlight in raindrops back in 1267, Roger Bacon, only Newton thought of analyzing the light and, refracting a beam of light through a prism, first counted five colors: red, yellow, green, blue, violet (he called it purple ). Then the scientist looked closely and saw six flowers. But the believing Newton did not like the number six. Nothing but a demonic delusion. And the scientist "looked out" another color. The number seven suited him: the number is ancient and mystical - there are seven days of the week, and seven deadly sins. The seventh color Newton fancied indigo. So Newton became the father of the seven-color rainbow. True, at that time not everyone liked his very idea of ​​the white spectrum, as a set of colors. Even the eminent German poet Goethe was indignant, calling Newton's statement "a monstrous assumption." After all, it cannot be that the most transparent, purest white color turned out to be a mixture of “dirty” colored rays! Nevertheless, over time, I had to admit the correctness of the scientist.

The division of the spectrum into seven colors took root, and in English language the next memo appeared - Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain (In - for blue indigo). And over time, they forgot about indigo and there were six colors. So, in the words of J. Baudrillard (albeit said on a completely different occasion), “the model has become a primary reality, a hyperreality, turning the whole world into Disneyland.”

Now our "Magic Disneyland" is very diverse. Russians will argue until they are hoarse about the seven-color rainbow. American children are taught the six primary colors of the rainbow. English (German, French, Japanese) too. But it's still more difficult. In addition to the difference in the number of colors, there is another problem - the colors are not the same. The Japanese, like the British, are sure that there are six colors in the rainbow. And they will be happy to name them for you: red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo and violet. Where did the green go? Nowhere, it's in Japanese simply no. The Japanese, rewriting Chinese characters, lost the green character (Chinese has it). Now in Japan there is no green color, which leads to funny incidents. A Russian specialist working in Japan complained that once he had to look for a blue (aoi) folder on the table for a long time. In a conspicuous place lay only green. Which the Japanese see is blue. And not because they are color blind, but because there is no such color as green in their language. That is, it seems to be there, but it is a shade of blue, like we have scarlet - a shade of red. Now, under external influence, there is, of course, a green color (midori) - but from their point of view, this is such a shade of blue (aoi). That is not the main color. So they get blue cucumbers, blue folders and blue traffic lights.

The British will agree with the Japanese on the number of flowers, but not on the composition. The English in the language (and in other Romance languages) do not blue color. And if there is no word, then there is no color. Of course, they are also not color blind, and they distinguish blue from blue, but for them it is just “light blue” - that is, not the main one. So the Englishman would have looked for the mentioned folder even longer.

Thus, the perception of colors depends only on a particular culture. And thinking in a particular culture is highly dependent on language. The question of "colors of the rainbow" is not from the sphere of physics and biology. Linguistics and, even more broadly, philology should deal with it, since the colors of the rainbow depend only on the language of communication, there is nothing a priori physical behind them. The spectrum of light is continuous, and its arbitrarily selected areas (“colors”) can be called anything you like - with the words that are in the language. In the rainbow Slavic peoples seven colors only because there is a separate name for the color blue (cf. with the British) and for green (cf. with the Japanese).

But the problems of flowers do not end there, in life it is still more confusing. In the Kazakh language, for example, the rainbow has seven colors, but the colors themselves do not coincide with Russian ones. The color that is translated into Russian as blue is a mixture of blue and green in Kazakh perception, yellow is a mixture of yellow and green. That is, what is considered a mixture of colors by Russians is considered an independent color by Kazakhs. American orange is by no means our orange, and often more red (in our understanding). By the way, in the case of hair color, on the contrary, red is red. It is the same with the old languages ​​- L. Gumilyov wrote about the difficulties of identifying colors in Turkic texts with Russian ones, for example, “sary” - it can be both the color of gold and the color of leaves, because. occupies part of the "Russian yellow" range and part of the "Russian green".

Colors also change over time. In the Kiev Izbornik of 1073 it is written: “In the rainbow, properties are scarlet, and blue, and green, and crimson.” Then, as we see, in Russia four colors were distinguished in the rainbow. But what are these colors? Now we would understand them as red, blue, green and red. But it was not always so. For example, what we call white wine was called green wine in ancient times. Crimson could mean any dark color and even black. And the word red was not a color at all, but originally meant beauty, and in this sense it was preserved in the combination “red maiden”.

How many colors are in the rainbow really? This question is practically meaningless. Wavelengths visible light(in the range of 400-700 nm) can be called whatever colors are convenient - they, the waves, are neither warm nor cold from this. In a real rainbow, of course, an infinite number of “colors” is a full spectrum, and you can select any number of “colors” from this spectrum (conventional colors, linguistic ones, those for which we can come up with words).

An even more correct answer would be: not at all, in nature, flowers do not exist at all - only our imagination creates the illusion of color. R.A. Wilson used to quote an old Zen koan on this subject: "Who is the Master who makes the grass green?" Buddhists have always understood this. The colors of the rainbow are created by the same Master. And he can create them in very different ways. As someone noted: “steelworkers distinguish a lot of shades in the transition from yellow to red ...”

The same Wilson also noted this moment: “Do you know that an orange is 'really' blue? It absorbs the blue light that passes through its skin. But we see an orange as "orange" because there is no orange light in it. The orange light reflects off its skin and hits the retina of our eyes. The "essence" of an orange is blue, but we don't see it; orange is orange in our brains and we see it. Who is the Master who makes an orange orange?”

Osho wrote about the same: “Each ray of light consists of seven colors of the rainbow. Your clothes are red for a strange reason. They are not red. Your garments absorb six colors from a beam of light - all but red. Red is reflected back. The remaining six are absorbed. Because red is reflected, it gets into other people's eyes, so they see your clothes as red. It's a very contradictory situation: your clothes are not red, that's why they appear red." Note that for Osho, the rainbow is seven-colored, although he already lived in "six-colored" America.

From the point of view of modern biology, a person sees three colors in a rainbow, since a person perceives shades with three types of cells. Physiologically according to modern ideas healthy people should distinguish three colors: red, green, blue (Red, Green, Blue - RGB). In addition to cells that respond only to brightness, some cones in the human eye respond selectively to wavelength. Biologists have identified three types of color-sensitive cells (cones) - the same RGB. Three colors are enough for us to create any shade. The rest of the infinite variety of different intermediate shades is completed by the brain, based on the ratios of the irritation of these three types of cells. Is this the final answer? Not really, this is also just a convenient model (In “reality”, the sensitivity of the eye to blue is significantly lower than to green and red).

Thais, like us, are taught at school that there are seven colors in the rainbow. The veneration of the number seven originated in old times because of the knowledge of mankind known to him then seven celestial bodies(moon, sun and five planets). Hence the seven-day week appeared in Babylon. Each day corresponded to its planet. This system was adopted by the Chinese and spread further. The number seven eventually became almost sacred, each day of the week had its own god. The Christian "six days" with an additional day off Sunday (in Russian, it was originally called "week" - from "not to do") spread throughout the world. So it is unlikely that Newton could have "discovered" another number of colors in the rainbow.

But in Everyday life The number of colors perceived by Thais depends on where they live. The city will soon have an official number - seven. But in the provinces it's different. Moreover, the colors of the rainbow can vary even in neighboring villages. For example, some settlements in the northeast have two orange colors"catfish" and "sed". The second word means something like "more orange". As in the case, say, with the Chukchi, who have more different names for white, since they have long distinguished shades white snow, the selection of a separate color by Thais is not accidental. In those places grows on trees beautiful flower"dokjang", the color of which is different from the usual color of the orange "catfish".

Since childhood, we all know the saying “Every hunter wants to know where the pheasant is sitting”, there is also a less popular version “How once Jean the ringer knocked a lantern with his head.” By the initial letters of these sayings, we remember the names and sequence of colors of such an unusual and beautiful natural phenomenon as a rainbow.

Humanity has associated the rainbow with many beliefs and legends. IN ancient Greek mythology, for example, a rainbow is the road along which the messenger walked between the world of the gods and the world of people, Irida. The ancient Slavs believed that the rainbow drinks water from lakes, rivers and seas, which then spills onto the earth as rain. And in the Bible, the rainbow appears after global flood, as a symbol of the union of God and mankind. The rainbow has inspired and will continue to inspire many poets, artists and photographers to create the brightest works of art. She also appears in many folk omens associated with weather forecasting. For example, a rainbow high and steep portends good weather, and low and gently sloping bad.

It is generally accepted that the rainbow consists of seven primary colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. It is believed that the seven colors of the rainbow were first identified by Isaac Newton, initially he designated only five (red, yellow, green, blue and purple), but then increased the number of colors to seven, which corresponds to the number of notes in the scale.

So how does a rainbow form? After rain, while small droplets of water are still held by air currents, the rays of the sun pass through them, refract, reflect and return to us at an angle of 42 degrees. As the sun's rays pass through the droplets, the light breaks down into colors ranging from red to violet. Sometimes we see not one, but two rainbows in the sky, the reason for the second, as well as the first, is the refraction and reflection of light in water droplets. Rays sunlight have time to reflect twice from the inner surface of each droplet.

How many colors are in the rainbow?
The larger the drop of water, the brighter and richer the colors of the rainbow. Two people standing side by side cannot see exactly the same rainbow, because. droplet size and density various places may be different.

But gradually the number and size of water droplets decreases, they either evaporate or fall to the ground, the rainbow loses its brightness, and then completely disappears ...

Of course, a rainbow can be seen not only after or during rain, a rainbow also forms near waterfalls, fountains, against the background of any, including an artificially created curtain of water.

The rainbow can also be seen at night, but then it will be less bright, since the moonlight is less intense than the sun, and in low light, the sensitivity of our eyes is lost, only the retinal receptors that perceive gray tones work. This phenomenon is rare, because. at night, a rainbow appears only if the moon is full and not covered by clouds, and the rain is torrential.

Sometimes a rainbow happens in winter, so there is always a chance that we will see this miracle of nature.

Literature
1. Trifonov E.D. More about the rainbow
2. Geguzin Ya.E. Who is making the rainbow?

How many colors does the rainbow have? It would seem that, baby question. Everyone knows that there are only seven of them - remember the sentences about "pheasant" and "Jean the ringer". But not all peoples agree with this "truth". And if we turn to the scientific approach, then the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe seven colors will burst like a soap bubble.

At first glance, a rainbow looks like a bright arc made up of several colors. Their list is well known: from red to purple. In the scientific community, this figure was determined by Newton - in his work ("Optics"), he substantiated and expanded the theory of de Dominis and Descartes. The researcher explained the reasons interesting phenomenon and highlighted the list of colors. True, the sequence is somewhat different. Green is followed by blue, then indigo, and then purple. So to the question, how many colors does the rainbow have, it is difficult to give an exact answer.

The result differed depending on the people and the period of history. Aristotle, for example, defined only three colors: red, green and purple. He shared his idea of ​​this phenomenon in the section of his work "Meteorology". He later increased the number to seven.

The Australian Aborigines considered the rainbow to have six colors. The same amount is now allocated in some English-speaking countries. In the Congo, the rainbow arc is generally represented in the form of six bright snakes. Some African tribes, when asked how many colors the rainbow has, will give a concise answer: two. They divide the entire spectrum of colors into light and dark. German, Japanese and French children are taught the concept of six colors.

It is curious that the Japanese do not have a green color in the list. The British do not have blue - in their opinion, it is only a shade of blue. So the perception of the rainbow depends on the specific culture. Therefore, the issue of colors goes beyond the scope of physics and biology, and philology should also deal with it. For example, in the Kazakh language, the number of colors coincides with our usual one. But the views themselves are different.

In the rainbow, the spectrum is continuous - different colors pass into each other smoothly, through many intermediate shades. It is easy to find an infinite number of "colors" - they can be selected as much as you like. After all, these are conditional names, linguistic.

It is much easier to answer a practical question - for example, what to do if oily skin on the face? The problem is easy to solve and get a visible result. And if you remember that there are different rainbows? Arcs are more common, but there are others that occur for similar reasons, although they look almost the same. This is a foggy rainbow (white) - it appears on miniature droplets of fog, a fiery one (halo type) - on cirrus clouds, while the moon appears in the dark.

We didn’t even think that we would ever return to this topic, namely, how many colors does the rainbow have?

It all started with the most famous memo about the fact that "Every hunter wants to know where the pheasant is sitting."

We then collected a whole collection different options this memo - and about the hunter, and for programmers, and Belarusian, and Ukrainian, and many others. There are so many of them that we even opened them in our "Encyclopedia"

And then it turned out that not all peoples have 7 colors in the rainbow. Some have six, in particular in America, and there are those who have only 4. In general, the question is not at all simple, as it might seem at first glance

And as often happens on the vast expanses of the Internet, there was an article on this topic. It was written so interesting that we could not resist and decided to republish it on our site so that our readers could also get acquainted with it.

How many colors does the rainbow drink

…when you see a rainbow, don’t separate yourself from it

when you see beautiful sunset, become him

it's the mind that divides

in fact, the stars dotted across the sky

are within us and we are within them

there is no division

there is no border...

The phrase "every hunter wants to know where the pheasant sits" has been known to everyone since childhood. This mnemonic device, the so-called acrophonic memorization method, is designed to memorize the sequence of colors of the rainbow. Here, each word of the phrase begins with the same letter as the color name: each = red, hunter = orange, and so on. In the same way, those who were at first confused about the sequence of colors of the Russian flag realized that the abbreviation KGB (bottom to top) was suitable for its description and did not confuse it anymore.

Such mnemonics are assimilated by the brain rather at the level of the so-called "conditioning", and not just learning. Considering that people, like all other animals, are terrible conservatives, then any information hammered into the head from childhood is very difficult for many to change or even simply blocked from a critical approach. For example, Russian children know from school that there are seven colors in the rainbow. This is jagged, familiar, and many sincerely wonder how it happens that in some countries the number of colors of the rainbow can be completely different. But the seemingly undoubted statements “there are seven colors in the rainbow”, as well as “24 hours in a day” are only products of human imagination, which have nothing to do with nature. One of those cases when arbitrary fiction becomes "reality" for many.

The rainbow has always been seen in different ways in different periods of history and in different nations. It distinguished three primary colors, and four, and five, and as many as you like. Aristotle singled out only three colors: red, green, purple. The Australian Aboriginal Rainbow Serpent was six-colored. In the Congo, the rainbow is represented by six snakes - according to the number of colors. Some African tribes see only two colors in the rainbow - dark and light.

So where did the infamous seven colors in the rainbow come from? This is just the rare case when the source is known to us. Although the phenomenon of the rainbow was explained by the refraction of sunlight in raindrops back in 1267, Roger Bacon, only Newton thought of analyzing the light and, refracting a beam of light through a prism, first counted five colors: red, yellow, green, blue, violet (he called it purple ). Then the scientist looked closely and saw six flowers. But the believing Newton did not like the number six. Nothing but a demonic delusion. And the scientist "looked out" another color. The number seven suited him: the number is ancient and mystical - there are seven days of the week, and seven deadly sins. The seventh color Newton fancied indigo. So Newton became the father of the seven-color rainbow. True, at that time not everyone liked his very idea of ​​the white spectrum, as a set of colors. Even the eminent German poet Goethe was indignant, calling Newton's statement "a monstrous assumption." After all, it cannot be that the most transparent, purest white color turned out to be a mixture of “dirty” colored rays! Nevertheless, over time, I had to admit the correctness of the scientist.

The division of the spectrum into seven colors took root, and the following memorizer appeared in the English language - Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain (In - for blue indigo). And over time, they forgot about indigo and there were six colors. So, in the words of J. Baudrillard (albeit said on a completely different occasion), “the model has become the primary reality, hyperreality, turning the whole world into Disneyland.”

Now our "Magic Disneyland" is very diverse. Russians will argue until they are hoarse about the seven-color rainbow. American children are taught the six primary colors of the rainbow. English (German, French, Japanese) too. But it's still more difficult. In addition to the difference in the number of colors, there is another problem - the colors are not the same. The Japanese, like the British, are sure that there are six colors in the rainbow. And they will be happy to name them for you: red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo and violet. Where did the green go? Nowhere, it simply does not exist in Japanese. The Japanese, rewriting Chinese characters, lost the green character (Chinese has it). Now in Japan there is no green color, which leads to funny incidents. A Russian specialist working in Japan complained that once he had to look for a blue (aoi) folder on the table for a long time. In a conspicuous place lay only green. Which the Japanese see is blue. And not because they are color blind, but because there is no such color as green in their language. That is, it seems to be there, but it is a shade of blue, like we have scarlet - a shade of red. Now, under external influence, there is, of course, a green color (midori) - but from their point of view, this is such a shade of blue (aoi). That is not the main color. So they get blue cucumbers, blue folders and blue traffic lights.

The British will agree with the Japanese on the number of flowers, but not on the composition. The English in the language (and in other Romance languages) do not have blue. And if there is no word, then there is no color. Of course, they are also not color blind, and they distinguish blue from blue, but for them it is just “light blue” - that is, not the main one. So the Englishman would have looked for the mentioned folder even longer.

Thus, the perception of colors depends only on a particular culture. And thinking in a particular culture is highly dependent on language. The question of "colors of the rainbow" is not from the sphere of physics and biology. Linguistics and, even more broadly, philology should deal with it, since the colors of the rainbow depend only on the language of communication, there is nothing a priori physical behind them. The spectrum of light is continuous, and its arbitrarily selected areas (“colors”) can be called anything you like - with the words that are in the language. There are seven colors in the rainbow of the Slavic peoples only because there is a separate name for the color blue (compare with the British) and for green (compare with the Japanese).

But the problems of flowers do not end there, in life it is still more confusing. In the Kazakh language, for example, the rainbow has seven colors, but the colors themselves do not coincide with Russian ones. The color that is translated into Russian as blue is a mixture of blue and green in Kazakh perception, yellow is a mixture of yellow and green. That is, what is considered a mixture of colors by Russians is considered an independent color by Kazakhs. American orange is by no means our orange, and often more red (in our understanding). By the way, in the case of hair color, on the contrary, red is red. It is the same with the old languages ​​- L. Gumilyov wrote about the difficulties of identifying colors in Turkic texts with Russian ones, for example, “sary” - it can be both the color of gold and the color of leaves, because. occupies part of the "Russian yellow" range and part of the "Russian green".

Colors also change over time. In the Kiev Izbornik of 1073 it is written: “In the rainbow, properties are scarlet, and blue, and green, and crimson.” Then, as we see, in Russia four colors were distinguished in the rainbow. But what are these colors? Now we would understand them as red, blue, green and red. But it was not always so. For example, what we call white wine was called green wine in ancient times. Crimson could mean any dark color, and even black. And the word red was not a color at all, but originally meant beauty, and in this sense it was preserved in the combination “red maiden”.

How many colors are in the rainbow really? This question is practically meaningless. The wavelengths of visible light (in the range of 400-700 nm) can be called whatever colors are convenient - they, the waves, are neither warm nor cold from this. In a real rainbow, of course, an infinite number of “colors” is a full spectrum, and you can select any number of “colors” from this spectrum (conventional colors, linguistic ones, those for which we can come up with words).

An even more correct answer would be: not at all, in nature, flowers do not exist at all - only our imagination creates the illusion of color. R.A. Wilson used to quote an old Zen koan on this subject: "Who is the Master who makes the grass green?" Buddhists have always understood this. The colors of the rainbow are created by the same Master. And he can create them in very different ways. As someone noted: “steelworkers distinguish a lot of shades in the transition from yellow to red ...”

The same Wilson also noted this moment: “Do you know that an orange is 'really' blue? It absorbs the blue light that passes through its skin. But we see an orange as "orange" because there is no orange light in it. The orange light reflects off its skin and hits the retina of our eyes. The "essence" of an orange is blue, but we don't see it; orange is orange in our brains and we see it. Who is the Master who makes an orange orange?”

Osho wrote about the same: “Each ray of light consists of seven colors of the rainbow. Your clothes are red for a strange reason. They are not red. Your garments absorb six colors from a beam of light - all but red. Red is reflected back. The remaining six are absorbed. Because red is reflected, it gets into other people's eyes, so they see your clothes as red. It's a very contradictory situation: your clothes are not red, that's why they appear red." Note that for Osho, the rainbow is seven-colored, although he already lived in "six-colored" America.

From the point of view of modern biology, a person sees three colors in a rainbow, since a person perceives shades with three types of cells. Physiologically, according to modern concepts, healthy people should distinguish three colors: red, green, blue (Red, Green, Blue - RGB). In addition to cells that respond only to brightness, some cones in the human eye respond selectively to wavelength. Biologists have identified three types of color-sensitive cells (cones) - the same RGB. Three colors are enough for us enough to create any shade. The rest of the infinite variety of different intermediate shades is completed by the brain, based on the ratios of the irritation of these three types of cells. Is this the final answer? Not really, this is also just a convenient model (In “reality”, the sensitivity of the eye to blue is significantly lower than to green and red).

Thais, like us, are taught at school that there are seven colors in the rainbow. The veneration of the number seven arose in ancient times because of the knowledge of the seven celestial bodies known to mankind at that time (the moon, the sun and the five planets). Hence the seven-day week appeared in Babylon. Each day corresponded to its planet. This system was adopted by the Chinese and spread further. The number seven eventually became almost sacred, each day of the week had its own god. The Christian "six days" with an additional day off Sunday (in Russian, it was originally called "week" - from "not to do") spread throughout the world. So it is unlikely that Newton could have "discovered" another number of colors in the rainbow.

But in everyday life, the number of colors perceived by Thais depends on where they live. The city will soon have an official number - seven. But in the provinces it's different. Moreover, the colors of the rainbow can vary even in neighboring villages. For example, in some settlements in the northeast, there are two orange colors "catfish" and "sed". The second word means something like "more orange". As is the case, say, with the Chukchi, who have more different names for white in the language, since they have long distinguished shades of white snow, the selection of a separate color by Thais is not accidental. In those places, a beautiful “dokjang” flower grows on trees, the color of which differs from the usual color of the “catfish” orange. You probably won't find this word in a dictionary. But you can hear about this flower in Thai songs in the Isan dialect:

"I really miss Isan, miss the flowers of the dokjang Tung Luilai"

"Forest Flame", "Forest Fire" - this is the name usually known for the "dokjang" flower of the "gray" color. And what color would we use in Russian when describing this flower?

Since ancient times, the rainbow has been considered a symbol of extraordinary good luck and luck. A bright luminous multi-colored arc in the sky delighted the eye of everyone who saw it, certainly improving their mood and letting them forget about problems and worries for a moment.

The old people said this: “If a rainbow breaks out in the sky in the morning, then the whole day will be easy and happy.” Some people still make a wish to themselves at the sight of this beautiful natural phenomenon. It is believed that as many colors in a rainbow a person can distinguish, as many wishes he can make. Therefore, today we will talk in order about what colors of the rainbow are and how many there are.

A rainbow is a physical optical phenomenon that occurs not only in the sky. Its essence is the refraction of light and the appearance of colors. Physicists have proven that light has a certain spectrum of hues, and the rainbow clearly demonstrates this.

It occurs due to the refraction of light in the smallest droplets of water fog or rain that float in the atmosphere. Light is reflected differently in water droplets, hence different shades appear.

Where is it seen

As it turns out, a rainbow can be observed not only in the sky. You can see a small rainbow:

  • If you sit next to the fountain and catch the refraction of light near the jet of water.
  • You can see it on a white sheet of paper when you write with a transparent pen on a sunny day.
  • Also, a rainbow can be seen through a prism, if this prism is brought to the sun's rays or to an ordinary electric light bulb.

But more often, we observe a rainbow in the sky.

How many colors are in the rainbow: primary colors in order

It is scientifically proven that any rainbow has seven colors. This:

  1. Red;
  2. Orange;
  3. yellow;
  4. green;
  5. blue;
  6. blue;
  7. purple.

In ancient times, there were not so many accurate optical devices to take a close look at how many colors the rainbow has. And the human eye can not always accurately determine the color gamut.

Aristotle, for example, singled out only three primary colors:

  • Red,
  • yellow,
  • green.

But in Japanese culture there is no traditional green color, so the inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun believe that there are only six colors in the rainbow.

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

We have 7 colors of the rainbow, they have 6

If you think that after the proven fact of scientists, how many colors are in the rainbow, all people on the planet agreed with this statement, then you are deeply mistaken.

In China, for some reason, they believe that there are five colors in the rainbow - exactly the same number 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 it happens? The fact is that blue and blue colors are very similar to each other, they are distinguishable only by the degree of depth. In addition, in a number of languages ​​\u200b\u200b“blue” and “blue” are called the same. In English, there is only one word to describe these colors. common word. Therefore, there is still such confusion as to how many colors are in the rainbow.

Remembering the primary colors in order is easy

The order of the colors in the rainbow is always the same, no matter in which part of the world we observe it and at what time of day, whether it is big or small, it stood in the sky for a long time or flashed and went out in a few seconds.

The first color is red, which gradually brightens and turns into orange. In turn, the orange becomes even lighter and turns into yellow. Yellow gradually turns green, then blueness appears, which turns into a juicy blue, and the last, final color of the rainbow spectrum is purple.

Remembering the order of the colors in the rainbow is quite simple. You need to learn just one mnemonic phrase - and you can easily name which flowers are in the rainbow, without hesitation.

So, memorize this sentence: Every Hunter Wants to Know Where the Pheasant Sits“. Simply and easily. And now you just have to take the first letter of each word and name the color of the rainbow:

  1. each is red;
  2. hunter - orange;
  3. wishes - yellow;
  4. know - green;
  5. where - blue;
  6. sitting - blue;
  7. pheasant - purple.

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

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

Cold or warm

A rainbow in the sky 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 figure out how many cold colors are in the rainbow?

Everything related to blue refers to cold tones. Thus, there are three cold colors in the rainbow - blue, cyan. Green color- neutral (like white). But purple, which has shades of purple, is neither warm nor cold, it is transitional.

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

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

A multi-colored arc in the sky is always against the sun

A rainbow always appears on the opposite side of the sun. So if you look at it, the sun will always shine from behind. Most often, a rainbow occurs in the morning or in the evening, and this also has a completely reasonable explanation from the point of view of physics.

When the sun is on the horizon, the rainbow is at its fullest and largest. The higher the sun rises, the smaller the semicircle becomes. And when the luminary rises to a height of 43 degrees relative to the horizon, it is no longer possible to see the rainbow. Because the angle for the refraction of light is not suitable.

The red color of the rainbow is always located in the outer part of the arc, and purple - in the inner. But! Very often there is a double rainbow, when there are two arcs in the sky at once. So, in the second rainbow, the colors are reversed.

By the way, seeing two rainbows is considered even greater luck than one.

Rainbow: interesting facts

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

Rainbows can be seen not only in the sun, but also after dark. Then the sun's rays begin to reflect from the moon, and a rainbow can appear.

The rainbow does not freeze in place, and two people who are in different parts of the city will see it in a completely different way. It will seem to one that it hovered over the river, and to the other - that it is located directly above the new buildings. That is why when you photograph a rainbow at the same time in the same city, you get completely different pictures.

Not all people can see all seven colors of the rainbow. It depends how sharp your eyesight is. Some may notice shades of pink, peach, light green in the rainbow. And they don't invent. After all, seven colors are the main classic colors. And there are really a great many shades in the rainbow, and some cannot be caught by the human eye.

The rainbow can disappear if you wear polaroid glasses. The coating of these glasses is located so that the light is refracted vertically and the person simply does not see what others see.

Exploring the colors of the rainbow in order

How to learn all the colors of the rainbow in order in one minute

How to remember, learn all the colors of the rainbow in order, in one minute? Very simple - repeat the sentence with Dana Smile and watch our video.

Learning the colors of the rainbow with a child: learning the order of colors

Video channel "MrP Vlog". Educational cartoons for children. Let your child develop. Happiness and health! Learn the colors of the rainbow! Since childhood, we have been learning the order of the colors of the rainbow by learning the phrase about the pheasant.