I was waiting for a friend in the surgery waiting room. Beside me, a mother was reading to her daughter on her lap. It must have been a kid’s science book or something. I heard mum say ‘lightning’, ‘space’ and ‘plants’.
The mother read, “Sometimes, after when it rains, there is a beautiful rainbow in the sky.” The little girl bounced up and down. Mum asked her, “Do you know how rainbows are made?”
“Oh! Oh! I know this, I really do!” The girl was excited. She concentrated. “Mmmmm…I do know… After lots of rain, God made the rainbow to promise that it would never rain lots again!” She looked at mum, triumphant that she had remembered her lessons.
Mum laughed. “Er…yes. That’s… one way to say it. Another way is that sunlight can be split up into lots of colours. Did you know that?”
“No!” the girl cried.
Mum ploughed on. “The light gets split up in the raindrops… But I wonder why the rainbow is curved?”
The look on the little girl’s face — it was like she had just been told Santa didn’t exist.
oh dear, that’s so sad……
children, they are filled with amusement towards everything… what a shame to dash their hopes like that!
Everytime I see a rainbow I still think back to that Bible story. If I remember correctly, the rainbow was linked to God’s promises to Noah and his family. It can be very moving sometimes, particularly if I feel totally lost or overwhelmed.
I don’t think science is necessarily boring or unromantic — to think something, white light, that we otherwise hardly notice, can burst out into all those colours under the right conditions!
I agree. I’m still amazed all those rain droplets somehow work together in sync to produce this big round circle of colour.
Do you know about double rainbows? (See the Wikipedia entry “Rainbow” for some pictures.) Is there a bible story for that?
I’ve seen a double rainbow before, but it wasn’t as spectacular as that picture!