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
National colours of the United Kingdom National colours of the United Kingdom The national colours of the United Kingdom are usually identified as the combination of red, white and blue in that order. These colours are the same as in the flag of the United Kingdom. The colours of the flag are in turn taken from the flags of England (white and red) and of Scotland (blue and white), which have been combined to form the union flag; to this was later added a red saltire for Ireland. In maps of the 19th and 20th centuries, the territories of the British Empire were usually coloured red