| I read with great interest the recent article entitled “The Secrets of the Best Rainbows on Earth”, which was published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. I would like to congratulate the author on this successful article and offer a closer look at the history of rainbow studies. In the article, the author briefly mentions the history of the recognition of the rainbow and cites Aristotle (~350 BC), Alexander of Aphrodisias (~AD 200), Avicenna (~AD 1000), and Theodoric of Freiberg (~AD 1300); summarizes the long history of cognition and scientific endeavor in the phrase “speculated on the origin of rainbows and knew that they appeared when sunlight fell on raindrops”; and then cites Rene Descartes as the first to give a satisfactory explanation of the rainbow phenomena. |