Aristotle METEOROLOGY Complete

Translated by E. Webster.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

100 pages - You are on Page 70

We have now shown why the rainbow has three colours and that these are its only colours. The same cause explains the double rainbow and the faintness of the colours in the outer one and their inverted order. When sight is strained to a great distance the appearance of the distant object is affected in a certain way: and the same thing holds good here. So the reflection from the outer rainbow is weaker because it takes place from a greater distance and less of it reaches the sun, and so the colours seen are fainter. Their order is reversed because more reflection reaches the sun from the smaller, inner band. For that reflection is nearer to our sight which is reflected from the band which is nearest to the primary rainbow. Now the smallest band in the outer rainbow is that which is nearest, and so it will be red; and the second and the third will follow the same principle. Let B be the outer rainbow, A the inner one; let R stand for the red colour, G for green, V for violet; yellow appears at the point Y. Three rainbows or more are not found because even the second is fainter, so that the third reflection can have no strength whatever and cannot reach the sun at all. (See diagram.)

Part 5

The rainbow can never be a circle nor a segment of a circle greater than a semicircle. The consideration of the diagram will prove this and the other properties of the rainbow. (See diagram.)

Previous Page / First / Next Page of the METEOROLOGY

Aristotle Home Page ||| Search Aristotle's works

Plato ||| Other Greek Philosophers ||| Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons

Development of Greek Philosophy ||| History of Greek Philosophy ||| History of Ancient Greece

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-Greece/aristotle/meteorology.asp?pg=70