Day 20 - Somewhere...

...over the rainbow

Back to work today.   The first day back after a break is always tiring.   Even a couple of days off over the weekend make Monday's tiring.  After a week or more the effect is more noticeable - although I'm sure it gets more difficult as one gets older.   At least I'm sure it used to be easier.

The news overnight was "Storms, Gales, Floods!", and sure enough, we went to sleep to the drip, drip, dripping of our leaky windows onto already-sodden towels, as once again strong westerlies gave the house a dousing.

When I got up this morning, the news headlines were along the lines of "The world is flooding, we're all going to drown!!", but outside it was looking a little brighter.

Sure enough, when I went to work I found the day warm, bright, clear and actually quite pleasant...once again, we're escaping the worst of it. 

By 10am there was still a little rain in the air, and this lovely rainbow appeared, and I took this photo from sitting at my desk.   If I was less of a lazy bastard I suppose I might have gone outside and found a better perspective, and not had the artefacts from taking the photo through dirty glass.  

Although the rainbow started to fade almost immediately, so my lazy bastardness paid off!   I knew it had to eventually...

Rainbows are interesting!   They have so many quirky characteristics, and raise some curious questions. 

For instance, it's impossible to see a rainbow from anyone's perspective but your own.  That involves some logical gymnastics - you could say that's true of everything, not just rainbows. 

But your rainbow doesn't exist from anyone else's perspective, it's uniquely yours.  Others will be seeing their own rainbow, although if they are located in close proximity to you they'll see a very similar one, in almost the same place.

How do we know whether or not the pot of gold exists?   And perhaps more interestingly, can this be proved?  You could ask whether the pot of gold could ever be found, but that's too much of a stretch, surely?

Anyway, first we'd need to establish whether or not the rainbow exists.   Is it any more real than the mythical pot of gold at the end of it?  The droplets of water that are refracting the light exist, sure, but are they the rainbow?  

Perhaps the most accurate answer (scientifically speaking ('cos of course I qualify as a scientist...cough...)) would be that the rainbow is the photons of light that are hitting your retina.   The rainbow doesn't exist other than these specific photons.    

The rainbow truly is only in the eye of the beholder. 

So it would seem problematic to establish where the "end" of these photons is...finding the pot of gold would seem impossible in this context.   

But let's assume (for no reason other than idle musing) that the rainbow does exist in some sense...

Now, even if you pick a point "over there" where the end of the rainbow appears to be...well, it only looks like it's there from where you are.   If you move towards it, it will move away.    If someone else goes there, it won't be their rainbow (which they'll see as being "over there" from where they are, in the same direction).

You can't get to the end of the rainbow to retrieve the pot of gold, and you can't even know whether the pot of gold is there, because you can't be both here (to create the rainbow on your retina) and there (to be at the end of it) at the same time. 

You see, this is the sort of nonsense that I have to put up, going round in my head, unbidden and unwarranted.

Just be glad you're not me.  I'd recommend just seeing your own rainbows, not worrying about mine, and definitely not worrying about pots of gold!

That way madness lies...apparently.

I think I'll stop digging right about now (funk, soul, brother)...