Medieval glass makers created the spectrum effect.
Rainbows are caused by water droplets altering the speed of colours in white light by different amounts. This separates them and produces a spectrum of supposedly, seven colours – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
And there is the rub. Most people can’t discern all seven, because blue, indigo and violet are a separation challenge too far for the human eye. Some cynics suggest that indigo or violet were invented by early observers in order to give the number 7, a mystical number and more interesting than 6.
Sunlit sea spray spawns
Mystic fear, but refraction
Is science’s riposte.
Mystical numbers were important in the 13th to 17th centuries, so the idea of an invented colour is not far fetched. And if a monk happened to stand in the right place as the mists off Holy Island (Anglesey) were rising, he had a halo of refracted light around his body, and one understands the attraction of a mystery and how early Christians manipulated their flock.
In my picture, one can imagine a figure standing within the halo, which makes it even spookier!
And then science ruined it all with an explanation.
More mysteries.
Check out the mysteries in Someone Tell Me What Is Going On.
Free chapters on this site. Help yourself.
Clive and Eva La Pensée 