7 notes in a scale. 8 if you count C (or whatever) twice. The octave frequency is double the fundamental tone. The two ends of the octave sound the same but different. On the color wheel purple and violet touch. Human vision runs from 1.65 to 3.26 eV. A close enough for jazz double. We hear 10 octaves and see 1. Maybe his 7 colors weren't so silly.
The green/blue/violet distinction is sooo interesting from a linguistic perspective
In Italian for example we have a common word for light blue, "azzurro" which is used much more frequently compared to "azure" in English, just like pink is for red. Both blu and azzurro are frequently used to refer to the sky (as in the popular songs by Celentano and Rino Gaetano lol). Celeste also literally means "of the sky"
Aqua is called "verde acqua" which makes it seen as a shade of green... and there are many shades of indigo blue that we call "viola". One anecdote I usually mention from my undergraduate optics class is a time we had to calibrate a prism using various low pressure vapour lamps. Many sources classified the 435.8 nm Hg line as "blue" while we were clearly seeing it as violet, so my lab mates weren't sure we were calibrating it correctly hahaha
He wanted to have 7 colors to match the 7 notes of the musical scale? Hmmm...did he have any idea about light being a wave and having a frequency and wavelength then? That would allow him to use the same math tools for optics and acoustics.
But there IS about as much "indigo" as orange or green in a rainbow. You could think of red, yellow, cyan, and violet as primary colors and the rest as between them.
Colour is a continuous spectrum. The choice of how many distinct colours to assign names to is arbitrary, so adding an "extra" colour isn't really a thing.
I’m a physicist who has worked with violet lasers, and I just wanted to say this isn’t actually correct. Lasers near 400 nm actually do appear violet to our eyes. Violet is a color in the rainbow not just in the sense that violets are blue, but in the sense that violet is truly a pure spectral color.
You might wonder, how can violet be a pure spectral color given it’s a mix of blue and red? Well, while our eyes’ blue cones are supposed to be the only ones excited by blue light, our red cones are actually slightly excited by wavelengths near 400 nm, which means that we start to see very short wavelengths shades as purple, not just plain blue. Our eyes therefore can’t distinguish between “pure” violet light of the rainbow, and a mixture of red and blue light. But violet itself does appear in the rainbow and is a pure spectral color.
"He found the law of gravity, the spectral colors of light and invented calculus on a dare. THEN he turned 25. We should cut him some slack. If he wants a color named indigo he has earned it."
the other reason that he added in the 7th is because at the time 7 was viewed as a holy number from God and he wanted it to incorporate that.
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In Italian for example we have a common word for light blue, "azzurro" which is used much more frequently compared to "azure" in English, just like pink is for red. Both blu and azzurro are frequently used to refer to the sky (as in the popular songs by Celentano and Rino Gaetano lol). Celeste also literally means "of the sky"
Aqua is called "verde acqua" which makes it seen as a shade of green... and there are many shades of indigo blue that we call "viola". One anecdote I usually mention from my undergraduate optics class is a time we had to calibrate a prism using various low pressure vapour lamps. Many sources classified the 435.8 nm Hg line as "blue" while we were clearly seeing it as violet, so my lab mates weren't sure we were calibrating it correctly hahaha
You might wonder, how can violet be a pure spectral color given it’s a mix of blue and red? Well, while our eyes’ blue cones are supposed to be the only ones excited by blue light, our red cones are actually slightly excited by wavelengths near 400 nm, which means that we start to see very short wavelengths shades as purple, not just plain blue. Our eyes therefore can’t distinguish between “pure” violet light of the rainbow, and a mixture of red and blue light. But violet itself does appear in the rainbow and is a pure spectral color.
"He found the law of gravity, the spectral colors of light and invented calculus on a dare. THEN he turned 25. We should cut him some slack. If he wants a color named indigo he has earned it."