Over the Rainbow

[Milan Kundera]

> 
> At 11:18 AM 5/7/96 -0400, you wrote:
> >an interesting side note on Newton's Optiks (sp?)...when he first broke
> >light up in a prism he counted 7 colors (adding indigo - where we now
> >count 6, leaving that out) because he was convinced that the 7 colors
> >would corrispond to the 7 notes in the musical scale.
> >	many interesting possibilities there....
> >
> >A.
> >
> >
> >
> >______________________________________________________________________________
> >           Since water still flows though we cut it with swords
> >           and sorrow returns though we drown it with wine
> >           since the world can in no way answer to our cravings
> >           I will loosen my hair tomorrow
> >           and take to a fishing boat
> >
> >			Li Po
> 
> When did we take indigo out of the ROY G. BIV spectrum that we learned as
> kids, and what sinister forces are behind this.
> 
> Scared to Know,
> 
> David A.
> 
> 

I don't know when how why it was taken out...does see odd.
i asked a physics prof here about it...here's what I got:


A,
	I don't really know a whole lot about it, other than to say  
that there have always been themes in physics and science about  
wanting nature to behave in simple, compelling, aesthetic ways.   
Sometimes it actually cooperates!  Anyway, there is a heritage of  
ideas of wanting the universe to behave according to simple ratios  
of integers (Pythagoras) or according to simple geometric  
patterns--Kepler originally had an idea that the sizes of the  
planetary orbits were governed by the sizes of Platonic solids.   
Many people thought that the planets produced musical tones as they  
moved, and that we don't notice the tone because it is always there.
	The remark about Newton in class came from a passage in  
"The How and the Why" by a physicist at Williams named David Park.   
It's the book I read from the first day of class.  Park writes:   
"For Newton, there were seven colors in the spectrum, not six; he  
inserts `indico' between violet and blue.  Various authors have  
suggested that Newton's marvelous eyes actually perceived indigo as  
a distinct color, but in Book 1, Proposition 3 [from Opticks], he  
tells us the real reason: he wants the colors to correspond to the  
seven notes of the musical scale.  Newton projects a spectrum onto a  
sheet of paper and draws eight lines on it, defining seven colors.   
He then compares the separations of the lines to the intervals in  
an octave.  When the `mi' is flatted to make a minor third, the  
correspondence is good, and the indices of refraction corresponding  
to the different colors fit very well into the Pythagorean ratios.   
Nature is indeed conformable to itself."
	Now you know what I know about it.

-Malcolm Sanders.