Neil deGrasse Tyson Tribute to Orlando Victims
Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains the Science Behind Rainbows in Touching Orlando Tribute
Powerful tributes and memorials to the Orlando, FL, shooting victims continue to spread and grow, like a series of tweets about rainbows by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The famed astrophysicist wrote a series of eight tweets on Tuesday night to discuss how we see rainbows and the colors that came to be synonymous with them. As Tyson begins, he talks about the scientific reasoning as to how we see rainbows and why Isaac Newton came up with the colors of it.
The exact Rainbow any of us sees in the sky is entirely our own -- a personal, yet communal gift from the laws of optics.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 14, 2016Rainbows are always the same angular size in the sky — they are various segments of a circle that is 84-degrees across.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 14, 2016A Rainbow forms only broadside to your line of sight. That's why the pot of Gold at its base remains eternally out of reach.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 14, 2016Isaac Newton, in Opticks (1704), published his discovery that white light is composed of colors - the colors in Rainbows.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 14, 2016Tyson went on to make a Star Trek reference before ending with how the colors of the rainbow are found on flags — like the rainbow flag that stands as a symbol for the LGBT community.
If we had vision like @StarTrek’s Giordi, Rainbows would look twice as thick, and include parts of ultraviolet & infrared.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 14, 2016Newton assigned seven colors to the color-continuous Rainbow: Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Blue-Indigo-Violet. Meet ROY G. BIV
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 14, 2016Most people can take or leave Indigo as a Rainbow color, but Newton was mystically fascinated with 7, so we’re stuck with it.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 14, 2016And sometimes you will find colors of the Rainbow on flags. pic.twitter.com/fl9AJuJANK
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 14, 2016It's a short, simple, scientific tribute that is just another way of people everywhere taking the time to remember the victims from Orlando.
