Trivia

Hard

The Colors Of The Rainbow Were Identified And Set As They Are Now By?

Archimedes
Ptolemy
Johannes Kepler
Isaac Newton

Answer: Isaac Newton

We have Isaac Newton to thank for a lot of things because of his prodigious studies and contributions to the body of scientific understanding. Among those things are the labels that we use for the visible spectrum. In the 17th century, Newton’s experiments with optical prisms yielded the first on-demand rainbows, if you will, in the history of scientific inquiry.

Curiously, despite his genius and sharp observational skills, Newton was quite terrible at distinguishing colors. In his original experiments, he identified the components of the visible spectrum as red, yellow, green, blue, and violet—merely five colors. Later, however, he revised his work on the visible spectrum and expanded the spectrum to include the additional colors of orange (between red and yellow) and indigo (between blue and violet). The change was driven primarily by Newton’s belief that seven was significant in the natural world as there were (then) seven known bodies in the solar system, seven notes in a musical scale, and seven days in the week.

It would be interesting, to say the least, if the world was different and he was firm in the belief that eight or nine was the number of true significance. Would we have an additional color in the spectrum? Perhaps teal (around 490 nm wavelength in the visible spectrum) or azure (around 435 nm).

More Trivia Questions

Trivia

Very Hard

The First Smartphone-Powered Satellites Contained What Phone?

Trivia

Hard

Who Was Fox Contractually Obligated To Offer The Role Of John McClain In Die Hard To?

Trivia

Hard

Early Forensic Experts Were Trained Using What?

Trivia

Hard

The Original “Snake Oil” Was Effective At Treating?

Trivia

Easy

Which Of These Things Is Paradoxically Difficult To Measure Accurately?

Trivia

Hard

The First Nuclear Powered Merchant Ship Was The?

Trivia

Hard

Which City Was The First To Have A Municipal Wi-Fi System?

Trivia

Easy

Early Jetliners Had Frequent Catastrophic Failures Due To?

Trivia

Hard

The Crowdfunded Film That Reached Its Funding Goal The Fastest Was?

Trivia

Hard

The Decibel Originated From Methods Used To Measure What?