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Why ROYGBIV is arbitrary

Isaac Newton was the first to demonstrate through his famous prism experiments that color is intrinsic to light. As part of those experiments, he also divvied up the spectrum in his own idiosyncratic way, giving us ROYGBIV. But why indigo? Why violet?

Science writer Philip Ball (author of Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color) tells the story of the creation of ROYGBIV.

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