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Atmospheric Phenomena

Rainbows and Other Colorful Phenomena

Who discovered how rainbows form?

In 1304 a German Dominican monk named Theodoric von Freiburg (1250–1310) showed that light passing through a large glass globe filled with water would create a rainbow because light waves were bent through refraction, reflection, and dispersion. He speculated that the same process occurs in raindrops, creating natural rainbows.