How Many Colors Are Really In A Rainbow?

The colors a rainbow throws out are colors on the visible spectrum. Science Blogs explained our eyes only see a small percentage of the colors that make up white light. Humans can only register wavelengths of 400 nanometers to 700 nanometers, meaning our eyes can only discern colors within that frequency. But light, even sunlight, is made up of colors in varying frequencies. For example, humans can't see ultraviolet or infrared light. Within those wavelengths that form visible light, there are also several different colors, varying shades of colors that seem to belong in a 64-crayon box, you know, the fancy kind.

Rainbows, wrote Atmospheric Optics, are actually made up of multiple overlapping bands of colors, not just the seven bands everyone is familiar with. So what we see when we look at a rainbow is a mix of different colors that form what people usually think of as a rainbow. Science Blogs even did the math to try and figure out how many colors a rainbow can disperse. Technically, there are more colors than atoms in a human's body, but it's possible that human eyes may see a little over a million colors. Imagine having to name a million colors. Science Blogs said each cone cell in an eye could recognize 100 shades of a color. Most humans have three cones, so they see a million colors, those who are colorblind can see 10,000 colors, and those who have four cones can even see 100 million colors!

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