Often, when the sun leans over the horizon and illuminates the outgoing rain, a rainbow appears in the sky. This is a very beautiful natural phenomenon. How many colors are in the rainbow and which ones?
S. Marshak wrote a poem about this:
Spring sun with rain
Building a rainbow together
seven color semicircle
Of the seven wide arcs.
The nature of the phenomenon
This huge seven-colored sickle in the sky seems to be an extraordinary miracle. True, people have already managed to find a natural explanation for it. The white color of the sun consists of rays of different colors, or rather of light waves of different lengths. Longer wavelengths are red, shorter wavelengths are purple. The sun's rays, penetrating from the air into raindrops, are refracted, break up into their component light waves and come out already in the form of a spectrum, a multi-color band.
As you know, flowers do not exist in nature at all, they are only a figment of our imagination. Therefore, the actual number of colors of the rainbow can be expressed by the paradox: "Not at all or infinity." The spectrum is continuous, it has an infinite number of shades; the only question is how many of them we can distinguish and encode (name).
Fairy tale "The conversation of pencils"
The Bulgarian writer M. Stoyan devoted a fairy tale story to the colors of the rainbow, which he called "The Conversation of Pencils". There he is.
Often, when it rains, you stand at the window, look, listen, and it seems to you that all things have a voice, that they all talk. And your pencils, right?
Hear, the red one says: "I am a poppy." An orange voice follows him: "I am an orange." Yellow is also not silent: "I am the sun." And the green rustles: "I am the forest." Blue softly hums: "I am the sky, the sky, the sky." Blue rings: "I am a bell." And purple whispers: "I am a violet."
The rain is ending. A seven-color rainbow curves above the ground.
“Look! exclaims the red pencil. Rainbow is me. - "And I!" - adds orange. "And I!" smiles yellow. "And I!" green laughs. "And I!" - having fun blue. "And I!" - exults blue. "And I!" Violet rejoices.
And everyone is happy: in the rainbow over the horizon - and a poppy, and an orange, and the sun, and a forest, and the sky, and a bell, and a violet. It has everything!
What is a rainbow?
A rainbow is an amazing and incredibly beautiful meteorological and optical natural phenomenon. It can be observed mainly after the rain, when the sun comes out. It is this that is the reason that we can see this wonderful phenomenon in the sky, as well as distinguish the colors of the rainbow, arranged in order.
CausesA rainbow appears due to the fact that light coming from the sun or from another source is refracted in water droplets that slowly fall to the ground. With their help, white light "breaks", forming the colors of the rainbow. They are arranged in order due to different degrees of light deflection (for example, red light is deflected by fewer degrees than violet). Moreover, a rainbow can also appear due to moonlight, but it is very difficult for our eyes to distinguish it in low light. When forming a circle, which is formed by the "celestial bridge", the center is always on a straight line passing through the Sun or the Moon. For those who observe this phenomenon from the ground, this "bridge" appears as an arc. But the higher the viewpoint, the fuller the rainbow is seen. If you observe it from a mountain or from the air, it can appear before your eyes in the form of a whole circle.
The order of the colors of the rainbow
Many people know a phrase that allows you to remember the order in which the colors of the rainbow are located. For those who don’t know or don’t remember, let’s recall how this line sounds: “Every Hunter Wants to Know Where the Pheasant Sits” (by the way, now there are many analogues of this famous monostikha, more modern, and sometimes very funny). The colors of the rainbow, in order, are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
These colors do not change their location, imprinting in memory the eternal view of such an incredibly beautiful phenomenon. The rainbow we often see is the primary one. During its formation, white light undergoes only one internal reflection. In this case, the red light is outside, as we are used to seeing. However, a secondary rainbow can also form. This is a rather rare phenomenon in which white light is reflected twice in the droplets. In this case, the colors of the rainbow are already in order in the opposite direction (from purple to red). In this case, the part of the sky that is between these two arcs becomes darker. In places with very clean air, you can even observe a "triple" rainbow.
Fancy rainbows
In addition to the familiar arc-shaped rainbow, you can observe its other forms. For example, one can observe lunar rainbows (but it is difficult for the human eye to catch them, for this the glow from the moon must be very bright), foggy, annular (these phenomena have already been mentioned above) and even inverted. In addition, the rainbow can be observed in winter. At this time of the year, it sometimes occurs due to severe frosts. But some of these phenomena have nothing to do with "heavenly bridges". Very often, halo phenomena are mistaken for a rainbow (this is the name of a luminous ring that forms around a certain object).
After the rain, both adults and children peer into the sky: what if a rainbow appears? People of all ages admire this unusual phenomenon with awe and joy - bright stripes of 7 colors stretching across the entire sky along the entire horizon. In ancient times, people believed that the rainbow appears by God's will, as proof of its existence. Children think that the stripes in the sky appear out of nowhere, as if in a fairy tale. But adult readers of the portal know for sure that the appearance of a rainbow is explained by the physical laws of nature and this is just an optical illusion.
How does a rainbow appear?
Physicists, observing the refraction of light in drops of water, with mathematical accuracy derived equations that reveal the mechanism of formation of this natural phenomenon. Knowledge of optical laws made it possible to prove that for the appearance of a rainbow, it is important not only the presence of rainwater drops and then the appearance of the sun, standing low above the horizon, but also the position of the observer with his back to the star.
The colors of the rainbow are in the correct order. Drawing by Vasilisa Batmanova, 8 years old, specially for
The stream of sunlight, reaching the surface of the water, refracts and splits the white rays of the sun into a color spectrum, and it consists of 7 primary colors. Red, orange, yellow are warm shades, green is borderline, and blue, blue, purple are cold. This is the order in which the rainbow colors are arranged.
In this case, red is external, and purple is internal. Often the rainbow is depicted in reverse order, but this is not true. Although, the reverse order of colors is also possible - in a doubler rainbow, which is discussed below.
When it rains, a ray of the sun illuminates the raindrop and penetrates into it, refracting into the colors of the spectrum. The wall of a water drop has a dense structure, reaching which the light flux is reflected in the opposite direction. This causes even more refraction. A stream of the rainbow spectrum breaks out from the point of penetration of the sun's ray. Since the observer stands with his back to the shining Sun, and facing the rain, he sees refracted sunlight reflected by billions of drops of rainwater.
The colors of the rainbow in reverse order, characteristic of the "second" rainbow. Drawing by Margosha Batmanova, 6 years old, specially for
Sometimes in the sky you can see not one, but two rainbows at the same time. Moreover, the second is not so bright or barely visible in the sky. Her colors also consist of 7 shades, but are arranged in an inverted state: from purple to red. The appearance of a "double" is easily explained from the point of view of optics: light rays are reflected in a drop of water again - and this is where a doubling rainbow appears.
A person is always interested in natural phenomena that are visible, but they cannot be touched: fog, evaporation of moisture, a rainbow. They seem to be a manifestation of a miracle, something unusual, of divine origin, but in fact their occurrence is proved by science.
In this article, we will look at a very bright and interesting topic for kids. Namely, let's talk about the rainbow.
Children are little "why-why" who, in principle, are interested in everything that surrounds them. Despite this, sometimes it can be very difficult to convey any information to the baby, especially when it comes to learning something. With the help of natural phenomena and surrounding objects, you can easily and quickly teach a child elementary things. Such as, for example, colors, counting.
All the colors of the rainbow in order for children, schoolchildren: the correct sequence and names of colors
The rainbow is something magical and unusual for all children. However, not all parents use this colorful beauty as a learning assistant. And very in vain. Having interested the crumbs in such beauty, you can easily learn the main colors and at the same time have fun.
- It is important to understand that it is you and me, adults, who understand what a rainbow is. For a child, this is something beautiful and unusual, something that he rarely sees, and perhaps even for the first time. That is why initially you need to give the child an idea about this phenomenon. Of course, it’s not worth explaining to a 3-year-old baby what a rainbow is from the point of view of science, but it’s worth telling the big picture.
- So, a rainbow is a multi-colored arc that we see, as a rule, in the sky due to the interaction of water droplets and sunlight. The sun's rays are refracted in water drops (rain, fountain) and you get such multi-colored arcs in the sky.
- By the way, a rainbow can be seen not only after rain, it can be observed near fountains, on the seashore and other bodies of water. That is, wherever a ray of the sun can "pass" through the droplets of water.
An interesting fact is that it is very difficult to see all the colors of the rainbow with the naked eye, which is why in ancient times only a few colors were distinguished. Over time, almost everyone began to lean towards the opinion that there are only 7 colors in the rainbow, however, there are also peoples who still have only 6.
- Red. This color is quite bright, in the rainbow it gradually fades and smoothly turns into orange.
- Orange. This color gradually becomes even lighter and warmer and turns into yellow.
- Yellow. At this stage, the yellow arc begins to turn a little green, resulting in a light green color
- Green. Then blue tones gradually merge into green, and the arc becomes pure blue.
- Blue. Further, a more saturated blue color appears
- Blue. After the blue arc, we see the last purple arc.
- Violet. This color completes the rainbow. The purple arc is always the smallest and shortest
What color does the rainbow start with, what color is in the rainbow 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 in order?
To make it easier and more interesting for a child to learn the rainbow and the colors it consists of, by all means tell something interesting about each color and name the objects with which it can be associated.
- The 1st color that "opens" the rainbow is red. Red refers to the color of love, comfort, warmth, care. You can associate color with red berries (strawberries), vegetables (peppers)
- The 2nd color of the rainbow is orange. This color symbolizes peace and energy, warmth. You can associate it with the sun, oranges, orange flowers, tangerines
- 3rd is yellow. This color symbolizes nothing more than warmth, peace, comfort, tranquility and, of course, the sun.
- 4th color is green. This color is referred to as energetic, cheerful colors. It is associated primarily with grass, the river and all nature, if we talk about it in general.
- The 5th color is blue. It is the color of peace, tranquility and friendship. It is associated by itself with the sky, the sea
- 6th blue. This color is considered to be the color of kindness, understanding, fidelity. The first thing you think of when you see the color blue is the sky, the sea.
- The 7th color of the rainbow is purple. This color is a mystery, often it is the purple color that is endowed with mystical abilities. It is associated with flowers, some vegetables and berries (blackberries, blueberries, eggplant)
Not just telling your child about the colors of the rainbow, but also showing them, talking about objects that are the same color, you can easily learn all the basic colors with your baby.
Colors of the rainbow in English: names with transcription
English is by far the most popular language in the world. Therefore, it is not surprising that they begin to teach him from the kindergarten. Almost the first thing that crumbs begin to learn is just colors. Since it is letters, counting, colors, etc. are the core knowledge.
Without knowing English at a sufficient level, it is quite difficult to learn his words. Because misread words will be mislearned. In this case, transcription comes to the rescue.
- So the first color of the rainbow red, on the English language spelled red and has the following transcription -. At the same time, it must be said that red is often translated not only as red, but also as scarlet, crimson
- Second color - orange, written as orange and reads like [ˈɒrɪndʒ]
- Third goes yellow- we write it like yellow, but we read as follows - [ˈjeləʊ]
- The fourth color of the rainbow green. In spelling, the word looks like this - gree n, read as follows - [ɡriːn]
- Fifth goes blue. In English, the color has the following name and transcription - blue
- The sixth color of the rainbow is blue. In English, it is written and read similarly to blue. Sometimes you can find this spelling in blue - dark blue, in which case the transcription will be as follows [dɑːrk] [bluː]
- And the final color is Violet. In English, color is written as purple, with transcription [ˈpɜːpəl]. Or violet with transcription [ˈvaɪələt] - this color is darker and more saturated
How many cold and warm colors are in the rainbow?
First you need to understand what cold and warm colors are. After all, not everyone knows that all colors can be divided according to such a classification.
- The type of color that belongs to depends on the wavelength of the spectrum. The longer this wave is, the warmer the color will be, and vice versa, the shorter the wave, the colder the color will be. At the same time, information regarding such an indicator is freely available and anyone can find it out.
- Despite this, we have no way to know this indicator solely with the help of vision, therefore people often determine which type a color belongs to, solely by subjective indicators.
- Firstly, it is customary to refer to cold colors all the colors that prevail in the cold season - in winter. Those colors that are often found in summer are considered to be warm.
- Secondly, at the sight of a cold color or shade, that is, a color with a short wave, a person relaxes, calms down, feels peace and tranquility, and may feel some kind of coldness. With warm colors, the opposite is true: seeing them, a person wakes up emotionally, feels a surge of strength, energy, visually the room in such colors seems lighter, warmer and more comfortable.
As for the flowers of the multi-colored beauty, they are as follows:
- Cool colors include blue, blue and purple. Their wavelengths are the shortest.
- Warm colors include red, yellow and orange.
- But with green, not everything is so simple. This color consists of 2 others: yellow - warm and blue - cold. In fact, this color can be called neutral, since it has both warm and cold shades.
All of the above information refers to pure colors, which are extremely rare in nature. In order to more accurately determine whether this or that shade belongs to a cold or warm color, it is necessary to consider in detail the colors and their constituent shades. For example, if yellow dominates in green, then it should be attributed to warm, if blue - to cold.
How to quickly remember the colors of the rainbow?
The process of learning and memorizing colors, in principle, like any other information, is different for each person. Someone grasps everything on the fly, while someone needs to make a lot of effort to learn at least a couple of words.
- It is much easier to remember the colors of the rainbow by associating them and the sequence itself with some kind of expression. The saying has long been heard: "Every Hunter Wants to Know Where the Pheasant Sits". The capital letter of each word is the letter that begins the color present in the rainbow. At the same time, the sequence of colors is also preserved - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. By remembering such a simple expression, you can very quickly and easily remember all the colors of the rainbow and the sequence in which we see them.
- There are other variants of similar hint expressions, for example: "Cat Donkey, Giraffe, Bunny Blue Sewed Sweatshirts". For young children, this option, in principle, can be even simpler and more interesting. Having chosen this expression for a hint, do not forget to explain to the child what a sweatshirt is.
- It is also important to engage in the development of memory. To do this, you need to learn different verses, read books.
- Do not forget that it is unlikely that you will be able to learn everything at once. So keep coming back to this topic, but try not to be too intrusive with the idea of learning, especially when it comes to a small child. Periodically remember colors, repeat associations to them.
The study of colors and rainbows as a natural phenomenon, if desired, can be turned into most interesting game, during which all colors and their sequence will be learned quickly and easily.
Video: Rainbow: learning colors. Educational cartoon for children
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 of different versions of this memory - both 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 at home 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 a beautiful sunset, become it
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 separation
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 (from 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. 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 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 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 simply does not exist in Japanese. Japanese, transcribing Chinese characters, the green character is lost (in Chinese it is). Now in Japan there is no green color, which leads to funny incidents. Russian specialist, who works in Japan, complained about how he once had to look for a blue (aoi) folder on his desk 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 of 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 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?
