{"id":5057,"date":"2010-02-28T10:09:58","date_gmt":"2010-02-28T10:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/?p=5057"},"modified":"2010-08-08T22:59:31","modified_gmt":"2010-08-08T21:59:31","slug":"unweaving-the-rainbow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/2010\/02\/28\/unweaving-the-rainbow\/","title":{"rendered":"Unweaving the Rainbow"},"content":{"rendered":"

I took this short sequence in the garden this afternoon.\u00a0 No photo-shopping, just a nice illustration of the splitting of sunlight into it’s component colors by refraction through a water drop – shuddering in the breeze after a storm.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"rainbow\"<\/a>The simplest of things, it put me in mind of John Keats’s supposed lament that Isaac Newton had destroyed the beauty of the rainbow by explaining the science behind it, the underlying sentiment of which he included in the poem Lamia<\/em>.\u00a0 I say supposed, because I can’t find a primary reference to Keats actually ‘having a go’ at Newton over his prism or whatever.\u00a0 Lamia<\/em> however speaks for itself (see below).<\/p>\n

\"Rainbow<\/a>Richard Dawkins gives an alternative view in his book, Unweaving the Rainbow, where he argues scientific understanding enhances rather than diminishes beauty.\u00a0 I’m with Dawkins on this one.\u00a0 And while those going through life without a scientific education (for whatever reason) experience it in a way that is different, I believe they are also simply missing out.<\/p>\n

Keats’s rainbow reference appears in his poem Lamia Part II<\/a>:<\/p>\n

What wreath for Lamia? What for Lycius?<\/em>
\nWhat for the sage, old Apollonius?<\/em>
\nUpon her aching forehead be there hung<\/em>
\nThe leaves of willow and of adder\u2019s tongue;<\/em>
\nAnd for the youth, quick, let us strip for him<\/em>
\nThe thyrsus, that his watching eyes may swim<\/em>
\nInto forgetfulness; and, for the sage,<\/em>
\nLet spear-grass and the spiteful thistle wage<\/em>
\nWar on his temples. Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy?<\/em>
\nThere was an awful rainbow once in heaven:<\/em>
\nWe know her woof, her texture; she is given<\/em>
\nIn the dull catalogue of common things.<\/em>
\nPhilosophy will clip an Angel\u2019s wings,<\/em>
\nConquer all mysteries by rule and line,<\/em>
\nEmpty the haunted air, and gnomed mine\u2014<\/em>
\nUnweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made<\/em>
\nThe tender-person\u2019d Lamia melt into a shade.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I took this short sequence in the garden this afternoon.\u00a0 No photo-shopping, just a nice illustration of the splitting of sunlight into it’s component colors by refraction through a water drop – shuddering in the breeze after a storm. The simplest of things, it put me in mind of John Keats’s supposed lament that Isaac … Continue reading Unweaving the Rainbow<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[92,5,101,449],"tags":[813,816,814,64,815],"class_list":["post-5057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-history","category-philosophy-of-science","tag-keats","tag-newton","tag-rainbow","tag-richard-dawkins","tag-spectrum"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkpOr-1jz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5057"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6843,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions\/6843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}