Does rainbow contain magenta color?

Answer 1

I would say, "no." Each of the (millions of) colors in the rainbow is "monochromatic" (meaning: it consists of a single wavelength). According to Wikipeda, magenta cannot be generated by a single wavelength (i.e. you have to combine two or more monochromatic colors to get magenta).

BTW, the idea that there are exactly 7 colors in the rainbow is an old wives' tale (which is unfortunately propagated even in many science classes). There are infinitely many colors in the rainbow and they form a continuous spectrum.

Answer 2

If you shine a magenta light thru a prism, the prism will separate the light into a red band and a blue band. If the sunlight were magenta the rainbow would be missing the middle portion---no orange, yellow, or green.

Answer 3

Rick b is quite correct. Colour theory is not as simple as you might think. The rainbow is a continuum of monochrmatic (single wavelength) EMR (Electromagnetic Radiation). These are the simple colours that can be combined to make polychromatic colours (like magenta, cream, brown and white if you consider that a colour, etc).

Now let's approach colour from a different perspective. We have three EMR receptors in our eye that respond to three bands of EMR. Those bands roughly correspond to the sensations of red (long wavelength), green (medium) and blue (short). The colour sensation we experience is related to the ratio of different stimulations of the receptors in our eye.

When, for instance, the blue and red receptors are equally stimulated we see..... Magenta. Now when the red and green are stimulated we see yellow. But, I hear you say, yellow is in the rainbow. But yellow is in the natural progression from long to short wavelengths. Similarly, Cyan is 'between' green and blue so we see it in the broad sweep of the rainbow (as a kind of light blue). Magenta is a mixture of the long and short wavelengths and so is not permitted in the rainbow.

You have to appreciate the distinction between colours as wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation and colours as ratios of 3 primary colours (receptors in eye).

You can email me if you need any more help.

Answer 4

The traditional description of the rainbow is that it is made up of seven colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Actually, the rainbow is a whole continuum of colors from red to violet and even beyond the colors that the eye can see.
The colors of the rainbow arise from two basic facts:

Sunlight is made up of the whole range of colors that the eye can detect. The range of sunlight colors, when combined, looks white to the eye. This property of sunlight was first demonstrated by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666.
Light of different colors is refracted by different amounts when it passes from one medium (air, for example) into another (water or glass, for example).
Descartes and Willebrord Snell had determined how a ray of light is bent, or refracted, as it traverses regions of different densities, such as air and water. When the light paths through a raindrop are traced for red and blue light, one finds that the angle of deviation is different for the two colors because blue light is bent or refracted more than is the red light. This implies that when we see a rainbow and its band of colors we are looking at light refracted and reflected from different raindrops, some viewed at an angle of 42 degrees; some, at an angle of 40 degrees, and some in between.

Answer 5

Some- a tiny bit. Also, it does contain ultraviolet- a shiny-whitish color that is seen as a brightness more than a color. It is just outside the edge of the violet.