Rainbow which a glass prism could separate into the full spectrum of colours, rejecting the theory that the colours were produced by a modification of white light. He also showed that red light is refracted less than blue light, which led to the first scientific explanation of the major features of the rainbow. Newton's corpuscular theory of light was unable to explain supernumerary rainbows, and a satisfactory explanation was not found until Thomas Young realised that light behaves as a wave under certain conditions, and can interfere with itself. Young's work was refined in the 1820s by George Biddell Airy, who
The Rainbow and the Rose The Rainbow and the Rose The Rainbow and the Rose is a novel by Nevil Shute. It was first published in England in 1958 by William Heinemann. The title is taken from a sonnet "The Treasure" by Rupert Brooke, which is quoted in full as a preface: <poem>When colour goes home into the eyes, With dancing girls and sweet birds' cries And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close The rainbow and the rose:— Still may Time hold some golden space Of song and flower and sky and face, Musing upon them; as a mother, who Has watched her