Re: Quest for colours: what's basic then?

David Zitzelsberger wrote:
> The reason for indigo, I believe, is so that the rainbow can be abbreviated,
> in English.
> ROYGBIV
The usual explanation goes back to Newton's work on optics. At the
time he was working with an alchemical theory that associated the
seven notes of the diatonic scale with the celestial spheres, and
he felt a strong need to build correspondences. 'Indigo' was to
make his list come out to seven (some sources say he only perceived
five color divisions, and added both 'indigo' and 'orange' to make
it come out.)

	Erich