- Rainbows form when sunlight bounces off airborne water droplets. When the light enters the droplet it is refracted—or deflected—slightly before reflecting off the back of the droplet. The refraction causes the light to disperse into groups of different wavelengths, which form the spectrum of colour you see.
- If sunlight reflects three times inside the raindrops, a double rainbow forms. The second rainbow is dimmer than the first, and its colours are reversed.
- Neil Diamond, Johnny Cash, Mariah Carey and Dolly Parton have all recorded albums entitled Rainbow.
- Rainbows are only visible when the sun is low in the sky and behind the viewer.
- The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was named after the Cree prophecy “When the world is sick and dying, the people will rise up like warriors of the rainbow.”
- The rainbow flag first flew in 16th century Germany as a symbol of hope and social change. The gay pride flag flew for the first time in 1978 at San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Celebration.
- A rainbow can be seen best with polarized sunglasses.
- René Descartes injected some empirical rigour into the study of rainbows in 1637. Previously, they had been explained by mythology. In Greece, they were a pathway from heaven to earth for Iris the messenger. In India, rainbows were the bow of Indra, the god of lightning and thunder.
- The first ship of the Royal Canadian Navy was the HMCS Rainbow.
- According to Christianity and Judaism, the rainbow is a symbol of God’s promise to Noah that there would be no more floods on earth. Hydro-Québec considers this a non-binding agreement.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2007 issue of Canoeroots Magazine.
