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 Blind Girl sun or rain and looks at the unusual spectacle of a double rainbow that has just appeared. Some critics have interpreted the rainbow in Biblical terms, as the sign of God's covenant described in Genesis 9:16. When the painting was first exhibited in 1856 it was pointed out to Millais that in double rainbows the inner rainbow inverts the order of the colours. Millais had originally painted the colours in the same order in both rainbows. He altered it for scientific accuracy. A tortoiseshell butterfly rests on the blind girl's shawl, implying that she is holding herself extremely still. The