Jump to content

ROYGBIV

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 38.111.35.2 (talk) at 15:56, 21 May 2018 (Undid revision 842292570 by GGPretzel (talk)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article is about the mnemonic. For the comic book character named Roy G. Bivolo, see Rainbow Raider.
The conventional seven colors of the rainbow symbol
Natural rainbows show a continuum of colors.

ROYGBIV or Roy G. Biv is an acronym for the sequence of hues commonly described as making up a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

A rainbow spans a continuous spectrum of colors; the distinct bands are an artifact of human color vision. In ROYGBIV, the colors are arranged in the order of decreasing wavelengths: red is about 650 nm and violet about 400 nm. The acronym is memorable because Roy is a male given name, so Roy G. Biv sounds like a first name, middle initial, and a last name.

History

Newton's color wheel that introduced indigo as a basic color. The uneven color division along the color circle correlates with the intervals of the musical major scale.
Newton's observation of prismatic colors. Comparing this to a color image of the visible light spectrum shows that Newton's "indigo" corresponds to dark blue, while Newton's "blue" corresponds to cyan. For more on this, see Indigo.

In Classical Antiquity, Aristotle claimed there was a scale of seven basic colors[citation needed]. In the Renaissance, several artists tried to establish a new sequence of up to seven primary colors from which all other colors could be mixed. In line with this artistic tradition, Newton divided his color circle, which he constructed to explain additive color mixing, into seven colors.[1] His color sequence including the tertiary color indigo is kept alive today by the Roy G. Biv mnemonic. Originally he used only five colors, but later he added orange and indigo to match the number of musical notes in the major scale.[2][3]

The Munsell color system, the first formal color notation system (1905), names only five "principal hues": red, yellow, green, blue, and purple (although note that Munsell's purple is not a spectral hue).[citation needed]

Another traditional mnemonic device has been to turn the initial letters of seven spectral colors into a sentence. In Britain the most common is "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain." The mnemonic is said to refer to the defeat and death of Richard, Duke of York at the Battle of Wakefield. To avoid reference to this defeat, people from Yorkshire developed the alternative "Rowntrees Of York Gave Best In Value."[citation needed] Alternatively, the biblically inspired "Read Out Your Good Book In Verse," or the more anarchic "Rinse Out Your Granny's Boots In Vinegar," may be used.

References

  1. ^ Newton, Isaac (1704). Opticks.
  2. ^ "SHiPS Resource Center || Newton's Colors". .umn.edu. Archived from the original on 2014-09-29. Retrieved 2014-05-24. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ Hutchison, Niels (2004). "Music For Measure: On the 300th Anniversary of Newton's Opticks". Color Music. Archived from the original on 2017-01-18. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ "PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING - ROYGBIV". YouTube. Archived from the original on 1 April 2016. Retrieved 2 August 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=ROYGBIV&oldid=842304366"