Unweaving the Rainbow This pleasure was not in spite of, but rather because he does not assume as cause the inexplicable actions of a deity but rather the understandable laws of nature. His starting point is John Keats' well-known, light-hearted accusation that Isaac Newton destroyed the poetry of the rainbow by 'reducing it to the prismatic colours.' Dawkins's agenda is to show the reader that science does not destroy, but rather discovers poetry in the patterns of nature. It is of little concern whether or not science can prove that the ultimate fate of the cosmos lacks purpose: we live our lives regardless
Rainbow explained the dependence of the strength of the colours of the rainbow on the size of the water droplets. Modern physical descriptions of the rainbow are based on Mie scattering, work published by Gustav Mie in 1908. Advances in computational methods and optical theory continue to lead to a fuller understanding of rainbows. For example, Nussenzveig provides a modern overview. Experiments on the rainbow phenomenon using artificial raindrops, i.e. water-filled spherical flasks, go back at least to Theodoric of Freiberg in the 14th century. Later, also Descartes studied the phenomenon using a Florence flask. A flask experiment known as Florence's