
- The Mouse and his Child. Russell Hoban.

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Sunday, 21 December 2008

A rainbow came inside today.

Today I noticed that our front door...

...had made this on the wall.


  1. Whenever electromagnetic radiation of any kind (light, heat, radio, gamma rays and microwaves are all examples of electromagnetic radiation) travels from one medium to another, the radiation will be refracted because the speed of light in each medium is different.

    When light travels from air into glass, the glass slows the light down, and the light refracts or "bends" toward the glass, depending on the angle of incidence. (The Angle of Incidence is the angle at which the light hits the glass. ) The amount of refraction (bending) also depends on the wavelength of the radiation, so when sunlight hits the glass at an angle, the glass breaks the "white" light into a rainbow of colours.

    This is the same thing that happens with a real rainbow, when light hits water droplets and is refracted and broken into different colours.

    I noticed these things in early childhood so I am surprised that it has taken you till your early fifties to notice the phenomenon!

  2. Ohhhh nasty. I'm sure some household detergent and a bit of 'elbow grease'will get rid of it though.

  3. Sigh. A short "Oh how pretty" was somehow all I was expecting. Silly nits.

    Once I stumbled upon a YouTube clip that a woman had taken of a rainbow she'd made while watering the garden. Her explanation scared me. In fact, if I can find it, I'll share it... I remember her asking in sincerely concerned tones "What is in our water supply? What is oozing out of our ground?"

  4. You shared that video, didn't you? I saw it, too, and thought it was just a joke, a parody of paranoid thinking. Anyway, I had a similar thing happen at my house (a beveled bathroom mirror cast a rainbow on the wall) and I took a photo of it.

    Happy solstice! (Winter, here) I wonder if the high summer sun had something to do with the rainbow magic.

    And, by the way, it is pretty.

  5. Thank you Debby. What a lovely, reliable person you are!
    I've decided to leave it there. The detergent didn't work, and I fell asleep in the middle of the YP lecture.

  6. Oh, how pretty!

    (Crazy Rainbow Lady would probably call in an exorcist)