Why Two People Can't See The Same Rainbow
Strange, but in the last several months I've heard two separate people mention seeing the same rainbow that some other person did, though the sightings were miles distant from on another. In one instance, two scientists were exclaiming about a beautiful rainbow they had both seen, asking "Did you see that rainbow yesterday?!" though at the time they were over thirty miles apart. A third scientist colleague bluntly pointed out "It wasn't the same rainbow."
The other instance was a fellow programmer showing me a picture of a rainbow that he'd taken, and I mentioned that I had taken a picture of a rainbow that same day. He said it was probably the same one, and I stated bluntly "It wasn't the same rainbow."
I thought this was the most basic understanding of light phenomena, that no two people see the same refracted image, no matter how close together they may be standing. Yet it isn't obvious, if such highly educated people can make the same mistake. I should remember, too, that Owen Barfield's Saving the Appearances begins by discussing this very phenomenon, and how careful consideration reveals a key to understanding reality.
If only everyone would carefully consider this phenomenon.
Comments
Really, that's a VERY good point, and one that I hadn't thought of. Yes, same water droplets. No, not the same light.
But that really is the heart of the matter here: we almost ALWAYS tend to consider solidity as THE mark of the real - water droplets are "solid" (tangible), and light is not.
"Sibling rainbows" then suggests that we have different reflections of the same source - two different rainbows, one cloud of water droplets.
What then about other, more solid, objects, like mountains?
Greg and I were actually discussing the same thing a while ago. I guess there's no question that you're seeing the same colors on the same rainbow, or that the mountain looks the same to whoever sees it (unless they're color blind). But what you're asking is, since we're all seeing different light being reflected off the same solid object, does that make it the exact same object we're looking at, or a different one?
I'd say it's the same one. Mountains are something you can touch, and they're not a kooky phenomenon of the weather. They're just rocks and dirt. Rainbows, on the other hand, you can't touch. And yes, that seems like an important factor to me. They're created by light, and they appear only when the conditions are perfect. To me, because they are so fleeting and incorporeal, this makes it possible for people to see "sibling" rainbows, while I don't agree that you can see sibling mountains.
Maybe it's because I buy into solidity being "the mark of the real," but I think it's in a good way. I don't consider rainbows to be unreal, but I do think they're just magical enough that there is no one rainbow plopped into the sky. Everybody sees their own rainbow.
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I don't think this is just semantics, either. It is a matter of really digging into what we mean when we say something is "real". Not in order to then conclude that nothing is real, but to conclude that "real" things are much more mysterious than we recognize.