Rainbow god circle

[Brian D. McCary]

> From: <MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu>
> Date: 	Fri, 3 May 1996 12:26:04 PST
> Subject:       Rainbow god circle

> (3)  Along these lines, didn't I learn way back in grade school that what we call a 
> rainbow's arc is only half the rainbow?  Don't rainbows continue, under the Earth 
> as it were, and eventually join up into a full circle?  Isn't the parabola of a rainbow 
> actually a perfect semi-circle and not  the often-assumed bell-shaped curve?  If we 
> could--pick up--the rainbow and project it onto the sky, wouldn't it be a perfect 
> circle?  So half of every rainbow is missing, an absent presence, and the--real-- 
> rainbow meets itself like Kekule's serpent, only we can't see that because of the 
> horizons.
> 
> john m

	Not exactly.  Rainbbows don't exist so much as appear.  You can see
round "rainbows" with the right light on a foggy night, and you are correct
that the arc is basically circular, not parabolic.  However, the reason
you can't find the end of the rainbow is that they don't really exist: they
are an optical phenomenon, not a physical one.  They are not located up
in the sky.  If they can be said to be located anywhere at all, it is 
on the retina.  This is why I find them to be such an apt metaphore in the
book: they are not quite material, not quite illusion, sort of the conspirisy 
that isn't.  Proving they aren't where they appear to be is extremely 
difficult, especially to the casual observer.  The same questions come up 
about the rocket, and even many of the other structures which appear to 
Slothrop and Co. throughout the book.  Was the rocket real, or imagined?  
Is he seeing a conspirisy, or just the fickle finger of fate?