Return to the rainbows : the study of the rainbow complex necessarily returns to the question of our understanding of light, ala Newton (corpuscle) and Huygens (wave).
Goethe, our poet/scientist excitedly sought apparatus to confirm Newton and had to borrow a prism from a privy councilor as he couldn't order one from his usual online supplier. He received the apparatae and placed them into a corner for another day.
Fast forward in time, the councilor demanded the return of prisms and and Goethe then rushed to his laboratory and using a hole in a darkened window to ;produce the cone of light (his projector wasn't working) he then saw this as I have previously referenced in another thread.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA3...es/light2c.gif
Note that there are two color combinations of the displaced light; the blue fringe superiorly and the yellow/red fringe as the inferior. He was surprised as he had hoped to see the full color(s) of the rainbow projected on the screen but to no avail. He did note that if one narrows the cone of light the top and bottom color combinations would come closer together and the rainbow of colors would appear.
He then became skeptical and saw that the Newton idea of light being broken up by the prism to be fallacious but he raised the salient point.
The color image(s) arose wherever the crease(edge) in the prism intersected with light ; the colors were the result of light intersecting with and edge or in another words the intersection of light and darkness. Yes, Darth Vader speaks.
Seriously, the intersection of light (brightness) and darkness becomes creative in the color realm ; a polarity approached through scientific study which of course borders and has been carried over over into the philosophic/religious spheres prior to Goethe.
Nonetheless the findings are of what has been mentioned the idea of phenomenological science without the theorizing prevalent today. Goethe didn't see light as material ala Newton nor wave ala Huygens but clarified the experimental findings without presupposition.
I'll repeat, the color wasn't contained within the light but was consequential to the interaction of light (brightness) and darkness.
Certain things follow for if we place ourselves within a brightly light room one will naturally feel expansive whereas within a darkened room there is an experience of compresiveness (better word here ?). this leads to the concept that darkness is not the absence of light, as per Newton and followers , but an entity in and of itself. Just as one can speak of intensities of brightness, in so called gradation, so can one speak of gradations of darkness which stands alone. This can be a hard nut to swallow I know, but one's experience in life can confirm the same.
The idea that if a box is blue that all the other colors within light are swallowed up by the box while the blue corpuscle is reflected is brought to question.
Before going further it should be noted that in this type of scientific study concepts are brought forth which are presented to work within the whole and can be denied if further evaluation proves the better; no need for dogma. the heavenly bodies of sun, planets and stars revolve, in movement, irrespective of our desires and need not confirm the question "what holds us up ?". they hold each other up, a platform of comprehensibility of cosmic origin.
Each of us can relate to brightnes and darkness and for this I will go to the seafaring Brits who have probably heard it but certainly the American sailor is aware of it:
" Red at night is a sailors delight, and red in the morning is a sailor's forewarning" .
At sea, it can better be seen but as the darkness arises with clouds in the sky if one looks at the setting sun through the clouds one sees "light seen through the darkness" and there will appear red.
Laboratory experiments cn confirm this by passing light through columns of liquid and actually different colors can arise if using substances like chlorophyll but that's ahead of the game.
Similarly one knows that the sky is darkness at night save for stars, if seen and other revolving type planets. During the day one looks at this darkened sky and sees blue. "Darkness seen through the light is blue ".
I'll repeat ;
" light seen through the darkness appears as red" while,
" darkness seen through the light appears as blue".
Such is the beginnings of a polaric concept of brightness and darkness. Thanx.